A Summer Solstice Blessing

 

This is my final day of the Post a Poem a Day for 5 days Challenge, so here is a new poem ‘A Summer Solstice Blessing’ for tomorrow and I nominate
Richard Thomas​ to post one of his poems every day for 5 days and tag someone new each day.

 

A Summer Solstice Blessing

 

 
May the bugs never affect your crops.
May the outside leaves of your lettuce
always be free of slugs.
May the magpies keep clear of your garden,
so the smaller birds can play.
May the mice not pick at your compost
and your hens always be in lay.
May you have warm words on a bright evening,
a full glass on this longest day
and a smooth road home all the way to your door.

 

 

poem and photo Rose Cook

Post a Poem a Day for 5 days: Love and the Flight of Birds

For the next day of the Post a Poem a Day for 5 days Challenge here is ‘Love and the Flight of Birds’ which is in my poetry collection Taking Flight (Oversteps Books, 2009) and I nominate Shawna Lemay to post one of her poems every day for 5 days and tag someone new each day.

 

Love and The Flight of Birds

Just lately I find myself
falling in love
with birds.

Is it their different flight,
their glide, slow soar,
the double bounce and hurry-up
over the tree,
their fragile legs,
enviable wings –
is it about longing?
But then, love is always about longing.

When they visit,
perch first in one tree or another,
I recognise them from their shapes
as lovers do, feel gratitude
that they come to me.

I break bread, tip seed
for these creatures of shattered air,
glossed instinct,
bones light as leaves,
wonders to gaze on,
fall
then fly again.

 

 

poem and photo Rose Cook

Post a Poem a Day for 5 days Challenge: my poem ‘Two Cups’

For the third day of the Post a Poem a Day for 5 days Challenge here is ‘Two Cups’ which is in my poetry collection Notes From a Bright Field (Cultured Llama Publishing, 2013) and I nominate Nell Nelson​ to post one of her poems every day for 5 days and tag someone new each day.

Two Cups

Now she’s dead I do it all the time.
I’m always setting out two cups for tea.
I bought her favourite biscuits just last week,
I can’t get used to not having her here.
There’s no one else to tell about the birds
or when The Archers start or to ask
if we should risk the plants out overnight.
The frost might come and then you’ve lost the lot.
I’m always setting out two cups for tea
and shouting her it’s raining, but she’s gone.
A woman comes to clean. She’s very nice.
She doesn’t talk much though and we don’t laugh.
I find I have too much time by myself.
I’d give anything to have her back again.

 

 

photo Rose Cook

http://www.rosecook.wordpress.com

Post a Poem a Day for 5 days Challenge

My second day of the Post a Poem a Day for 5 days Challenge.
Here is ‘Spa Visit’ which is in my poetry collection Taking Flight (Oversteps Books, 2009) and I nominate Jackie Juno to post one of her poems every day for 5 days and tag someone new each day.

Spa Visit

In San Giuliano we find the spa
where Shelley and Byron bathed
for their health.
We stand outside in bright sun
to watch the fountain play.

You point to a balcony, a statue,
Giuliano himself perhaps.
He looks a little like the Pope,
all in white with a short cape and ?.
Slowly we realise, it is a folded parasol.
We have seen so many statues,
we are hallucinating. We begin to laugh.

We laugh out in the hot garden,
by the spa where Shelley bathed,
shortly before he drowned.
We laugh, holding on to each other,
while the Pope looks down on us,
or is it San Giuliano,
and the white coated spa attendants
flit past open doors.
We laugh, while the old men watch us
from the shadowed side of the town square.

I put my hand in the fountain
and wonder if Shelley felt any premonition
while he relaxed in the sulphured thermal waters,
sinking into their healing embrace.

 

poem and photo Rose Cook