Tag: earthweal

Rain Sings Lullaby – An Alouette Poem

Where did heart’s hope go?
Rain sings lullaby
Drowning with nature’s sorrow
Is the future lost?
Like lovers star-crossed
No faraway tomorrow

Hope’s an empty cage
Heaven thunder rage
Cascading tears from the sky
Earth still has power
Closing in each hour
Rain sings mourning lullaby

©RedCat

Written to the image at Sunday Muse. And heavily affected by feelings related to the latest IPCC report. 

This is a new form for me, the Alouette. I recently read this delightful poem at Tao Talk, which in turn was inspired by a poem by Shay. I frankly love how the writing community inspires and teaches by passing the lore of poetry from one person to the other. 

The Alouette has a meter of 5,5,7,5,5,7. And a rhyme scheme of a,a,b,c,c,b.

Also shared with earthweal open link weekend.

Image credits:

First image: Prompt photo from The Sunday Muse.

Second image: Photo by michael podger on Unsplash

Third image: Photo by Ruslan Zh on Unsplash

5

Human Missconceptions (2020 Re-post)

Art by helldivo at DeviantArt 

We see trees to fell

We fail to hear the stories a forest can tell

Timber to count

Of life giving life, until we come Gaia’s fount

Land to clear

Rebirth and renewal every year

Fields to sow

How nature nothing away throws

We see nature as something to tame

Our beloved planet will never be the same

We must learn, or live in man made hell
Teach each other to hard challenges surmount
Learn to hold our only planet dear
Accept that to some laws of nature we must bow
Because if Earth dies beneath our feet, we only got ourselves to blame

© RedCat

Re-post comment:

Nearly a year on I wish I could say we have taken strides to change our behavior. To remind us all this becomes this week’s archive poem.

In The Anthropocene Hymnal we share poetry about our slow sleepwalk into Armageddon.

Inspiered by the beautiful artwork shared by The Sunday Muse.

Also posted to Writers’ Pantry #34 at Poets and Storytellers United.

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As I Reap The Dreams That I Have Sown – A Harvest Song

There’s thunder in the sky,
the sickle flashes by.
As I hurry to cut down the corn.

I reap with a happy sigh,
as swift swallows fly.
The field must be done by Sunday morn.

I’ve struggled and hoped,
clinging to a frayed rope.
Until roots took hold, new futures were born.
Now I’ve got to be bold, leave behind what I’ve been told.

Forget about the lonely tears I weeped.
As I reap the dreams that I have sown.

The harvest moon glow,
when I life changes sow.
As I sing beneath the sickle moon.

I’ll rise above my woes,
when the change of seasons blows.
As I dance scy-clad to her freeing tune.

Forget about the lonely tears I weeped.
As I reap the dreams that I have sown.

I’ve sown the seeds,
that my soul will free.
Time to harvest them just like the corn.

I’ve learnt to know my needs,
to my muses feed.
Now let creativity my life adorn.

I’ve struggled and hoped,
clinging to a frayed rope.
Until roots took hold, new futures were born.
Now I’ve got to be bold, leave behind what I’ve been told.

Forget about the lonely tears I weeped.
As I reap the dreams that I have sown.

As I reap the dreams that I have sown.

©RedCat

Written for earthweal’s weekly challenge: LAMMAS. I was so inspired by the song in the prompt, a 14th century song about the death and rebirth of the barley crop (video below), that I had to write one of my own.

Of sowing and reaping, growing and weeping, of dreams becoming reality.

Steve Winwood singing “John Barleycorn must die” – a 14th century song about the death and rebirth of the barley crop

Photo credits:

Sickle moon – Photo by Mitchell Bowser on Unsplash

Corn Field – Photo by Nadine Redlich on Unsplash

5

Midsummer Night Full Moon

Midnight midsummer moon rise
Stockholm, Sweden
©RedCat

Midsummer night full moon
Do you hear the alluring tune
The caressing song of a full moon in June

Shining her golden light
In the pale summer night
Beacon to the dancing witch’s sight

Touching on bare skin
Kindling creative passion within
Letting the dream visions begin

Her visit might be short
Just long enough to lead the way to fairy court
Get a glimpse of a soul’s consort

After that the soul will know
Recognize the shared inner glow
The love who’ll allow you to grow

Under midsummer’s full moon
A witch might find her soul’s tune
The one that to natures ebb and flow attune

©RedCat
Örebro, Sweden
Photo by Philip Myrtorp on Unsplash

The night before Midsummer’s Eve the moon rose full and golden. Adding to the already otherworldly quality of Nordic midsummer night. I just had to write something before I could go to sleep.

My photo is cropped, but not edited or taken with night setting. Meaning this is how bright a cloudy overcast midnight is here this time of year.

This year I’ve written several Midsummer poems;
Æsir Solstice Sunrise, Guarded By The Unicorn and Midsummer Frenzy.
And numerous Daily Haibuns.

Midnight Sun, Nykvåg, Norway
Photo by Vidar Nordli-Mathisen on Unsplash

Also linked to earthweal open link weekend #72.

5

Æsir Solstice Sunrise

Freja by John Bauer, via Wikimedia Commons

In preparation for the solstice sunrise
The Æsirs beat their biggest drums
Filling the nightless midsummer night
With a majestic boom-boom-hum

Heimdallr heralds dawn by blowing the mighty Gjallarhorn
By Thor the holy hammer Mjölnir is thrown
The air by lightning strikes is torn
The earth seeded with protective thunderstones

Freya dons her feather cloak to fly
Seeking girls born with seiðr powers
Sending dreamers her priestess cry
To ken, pick seven kinds of flowers

The first step on the Völvas path
To see the meaning of the magic runes
Only for those that fearless curiosity hath
The hearing of the Norns spinning tunes

From the clouds that Frigg has spun
A cleansing rain starts to fall
Nourishing this year’s harvest growth begun
Ensuring food for animals and folk all

Ask and Embla’s children rise
Woken by the storm sounds
Hearing the Goddess falcon cries
Know it’s time to attend to holy grounds

The world cleansed, all peoples awake
Æsir, elfs, humans, vanirs and fauns
Sol her chariot to heaven take
Raising the sun to solstice dawn

©RedCat
Frigga Spinning the Clouds by John Charles Dollman
via Wikimedia Commons

This is the poem I began composing as I lay listening to the thunder on the shortest night of the year. I’ve managed to learn a trick that makes me able to remember short stanzas even after sleep. I compose a short stanza, or maybe only a couplet. Then while focusing on the sound, rhythm and feeling of what I want the poem to become, I say the lines over, and over, and over. Until they are firmly set in my mind. I do something similar when walking and having an idea, but not wanting to stop to write it down. This technique works most of the time, and gets more and more reliable the more I use it. I think this is relatively easy for me to do because when I sang as a child, all songs and melodies had to be learnt by heart.

I’ve read more than once that there’s absolutely no evidence for any pre-Christian Midsummer or Solstice celebrations in the North, even though most people here think so. And while I accept that fact. I refuse to believe that any people this far north would have celebrated only Midwinter, when night is nearly, or wholly depending on how far north, all day long. And not celebrate Midsummer when there is no true night, only day, dusk and dawn. Or Midnight Sun if you’re far enough north.

So while my poem is based on real Norse mythology – Æsir Gods and Goddesses, magical items and folklore. The story itself is wholly dreamt up by me listening to thunder rumble and boom.

Below you’ll find a list of internet sources where you can read more on each included God or Goddess, item or folkloric belief.

Shared to and read at Open Link Night #295 – Midsummer Live at dVerse.

Also shared to:

earthweal weekly challenge: A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAMTIME.

Writers’ Pantry #76: Whatever the Weather over at Poets and Storytellers United.

Promote Yourself Monday, June 28, 2021 at Go Dog Go Café.

 Nornir of Norse mythology at the  Urðarbrunnr., by L. B. Hansen
via Wikimedia Commons

Æsir, Vanirs and Elves
Freya
Frigg
Norns
Sol
Thor
Heimdallr

The Gjallarhorn 
Mjölnir

Ask och Embla
To ken – Kenning
Seiðr – Magic
Thunderstones
Völva – Seeress

20

Restless rest (2020 Re-post)

Terry Marks, Nightmare in a Mirror

Re-post comment:

I’ve had a little ache in my shoulder for a couple of weeks. Nothing major. Until today. When it exploded into – want to scream with pain every time I move my arm to much or too fast. Tried to take a rest earlier today, but lying down just made it worse.

So anticipating a night of restless rest tonight. Which is why this is this week’s Wandering the Archives Wednesday.

Haunted nights
Disrupted sleep
Grinding theeth

Heart-longed ghosts
Reawaken grief
Daylight seize

Angry wraiths
Trauma made
Flashback gave

Phantom could-have-been
Raises fear
Near-miss dear

Lonely-heart specter
Honest trust
Hope dust

Shades erupting
Legions burned
Can humans learn

Poet quills
Nighttime fills
Worrywart stills

© REDCAT

I’ve had a couple of weeks of restless rest. The death-rebirth energies surrounding midwinter tends to do that. Especially if you work with yourself then.

Add to that the realization that climate change is not longer a thing of the future. Climate emergency is NOW. So we should ACT NOW. Stop consuming so much! Choose better materials. Work towards not using fossil fuels. And so on and so forth. All the things I feel like a broken record for repeating again, and again, and again.

As icing on the cake comes angst as a beloved friend, and several others, had a near miss with death. Senseless violence that’s probably aimed at someone, but shows total lack of care for human life. Again, loss of life is down to sheer coincidences. I really don’t want to live in a world where some think blowing a bomb, nearly talking a building, is a correct response to anything!

Poem written for weekly challenge: GHOSTS at earthweal.

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Floating Around Everywhere – April Ekphrastic Challenge

Magic is Afoot – Kerfe Roig

I

There’s magic in the air
floating around
everywhere

Making hearts ignite and flare
love abounds
anywhere

Leaving souls exposed and bare
astonished sounds
everywhere

People find they do care
for our home round
floating in space somewhere

II

There’s change in the air
floating around
everywhere

Of the dangers let’s be aware
before the ground
is lifeless both here and there

We musn’t give up and despair
our guilt compound
by hiding scared

Of our faults we’re now aware
let hope be found
everywhere

III

There’s evolution in the air
floating around
everywhere

We must accept there’s no time to spare
the alarm has sounded
everywhere

Voices lift in solemn prayers
let healthy nature be found
anywhere

Minds meld and wishes share
heal Earth’s wounds
everywhere

©RedCat

From the magical to the very real. Written inspired by the image and by the fact that it seems like more and more people are waking up to the fact that we have to do something about the environmental disaster NOW!

To see all art and read all poems for today go to The Wombwell Rainbow.

Also shared with earthweal Earth Day challenge: RESTORE OUR EARTH.

Photo by The New York Public Library on Unsplash
Kerfe Roig

A resident of New York City, Kerfe Roig enjoys transforming words and images into something new.  Her poetry and art have been featured online by Right Hand Pointing, Silver Birch Press, Yellow Chair Review, The song is…, Pure Haiku, Visual Verse, The Light Ekphrastic, Scribe Base, The Zen Space, and The Wild Word, and published in Ella@100, Incandescent Mind, Pea River Journal, Fiction International: Fool, Noctua Review, The Raw Art Review, and several Nature Inspired anthologies. Follow her explorations on her blogs, https://methodtwomadness.wordpress.com/  (which she does with her friend Nina), and https://kblog.blog/, and see more of her work on her website http://kerferoig.com/

April Ekphrastic Challenge – GloPoWriMo 2021

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GloPoWriMo 2021 preparations

© RedCat

Tomorrow is first of April, the beginning of Easter, or Ostara if you’re so inclined. It’s also the first day of Global Poetry Writing Month. I participated last year without knowing what I got myself into.

I managed to write 30 poems with some help from my favourite writing community site’s.

This year I have actually planned a bit ahead. Thinking over which sites gives the prompts that inspires me most. And signing up for another Ekprastic Challenge.

You’ll find me writing to art at The Wombwell Rainbow, to the always inspiring Skyloverswordlist, my poetry home at dVerse Poet’s Pub, and perhaps also The Sunday Muse, Poet’s and Storytellers United and Earthweal.

See you at the poetry trail! 💕

© RedCat
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