Poetry and Ecopsychology: "Experience gravity as the love that the Earth feels for the very matter that makes up your body, a love that holds you safe and prevents you from floating off into space." Stephan Harding
Atlantic Depression
(A riff on Shakespeare's Sonnet 18)
"Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?...
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May"
(Sonnet 18, William Shakespeare.)
Hawthorns show white May buds
just opening in our eyes
we try the walk before the threatened gale
you anxious to make photos with your phone
...a field of daisies lie like a March frost
you take a shot of horses sheltering
pale as the piebald sky
they know the weather's change
I zip my thick shirt up against the rough wind
(the shirt a Christmas gift from you)
hey...keep absolutely still... you say
I look away at the full white daisy field
profile in glasses my beard a nice trim
a stay home hair cut by you...I am so
still...delve down with the blackthorn weather
wonder how much time we've left together
When like the sun will our gold complexions dim?
Will's not modest to suggest these lines
preserve his lover's shine... perfection in
a poem remains a kind of precious ash...
if our love must wander in the shades
the garden wood will be the sonnet's walls
our ash within a galaxy of blooms
and every day in May you'ld see we did not fade
our sun with honeysuckled scents and bluebells made
Tony, I love everything about this poem. It is perfectly rooted in its time and place, and the images are stunning. I am so glad that the sonnet has come back as a poetic form. And I am equally happy to see that you have become such an apt practitioner.
Dear Marcia, well thank you: it is a sort of free verse sonnet, if at all. We think of you and John a lot here and your side of the sea in Mystic….we have spent a lot of time during lockdown making a sacred woodland space in the garden…it is coming on …waiting for some Star Jasmine to climb on the wall….new bluebells blooming, planted last Fall and the Clematis bending down to us, tendril and spray, on the new arch. Lovely to hear from you.
*This tenderness! As delicate as blackthorn blossoms, as hard and true as the gale. This brought tears to my eyes, Tony. So beautiful Thank you for sharing your moments, and your love with us!* (BTW, I don’t know why but I have such trouble with leaving comments on WordPress blogs, despite that I am registered with them. Hence the email.) xoxox
The Hug of Gaia 
Tony, I love everything about this poem. It is perfectly rooted in its time and place, and the images are stunning. I am so glad that the sonnet has come back as a poetic form. And I am equally happy to see that you have become such an apt practitioner.
>
LikeLike
Dear Marcia, well thank you: it is a sort of free verse sonnet, if at all. We think of you and John a lot here and your side of the sea in Mystic….we have spent a lot of time during lockdown making a sacred woodland space in the garden…it is coming on …waiting for some Star Jasmine to climb on the wall….new bluebells blooming, planted last Fall and the Clematis bending down to us, tendril and spray, on the new arch. Lovely to hear from you.
LikeLike
*This tenderness! As delicate as blackthorn blossoms, as hard and true as the gale. This brought tears to my eyes, Tony. So beautiful Thank you for sharing your moments, and your love with us!* (BTW, I don’t know why but I have such trouble with leaving comments on WordPress blogs, despite that I am registered with them. Hence the email.) xoxox
*Everywhere is falling everywhere. – *Rumi
LikeLike
Oh thank you so much Beth.
LikeLike
Just finding this one. Oh, Tony. Perfect. Thank you.
LikeLike