Mourners

Cherry

By Gilbert

Sat, 09 Feb 2008
  • 1374 reads
2 comments
 

At the touch of sunlit drizzle
the small rhododendron cups
catch fire.
And solemn herons stand
on their river reflections,
as a north wind silvers the words
God speaks in the wilderness.

Here, only gnarled roots
of pithead
mark where long-dead
miners lie.
And old conversations, the words
and gestures of unrecorded love,
the legends of who they were,
end here.
Among slag heap remains.

On the dawn skyline
between flickering
scrub and gorse
four skeletal oak trees
sway and gently sigh.

Certificate U
Poem
Stuff
Autobiography

Comments

Submitted by Sooz006 on
The first verse of this is beautiful, especially the line about heron's reflections. For some reason it put me in mind of a Japanese rembmberance garden. And then you're in a Yorkshire mining villiage... but I'm still in Japan with the herons which is my fault, not yours, at no point do you mention sushi. I really enjoyed this, but had to see it as two poems not one. If it wasn't for bloody Japan getting in the way the starkness of the second and third verse works well against the beauty of the first. Nice one.

 

Submitted by Gilbert on
Thank you for the kind comments, Sooz, Strangely enough, this began life as a haiku-the original idea was to write a number of loosely connected haiku verses. I got bored halfway through and it ended up like this.(Story of my life!) Thanks again. G.