The Scots pine glows red-skinned
In the morning light.
He is always there,
Watching over my life.
Sometimes he stands out,
As beautiful as beauty itself,
And sometimes he is invisible.
Today, his presence is called
And warbled by the birds
Hopping among his branches.
The breeze too has its say
In the vibration of a myriad needles.
In millennial silence
beings conceived at the very beginnings
unfold as they have timeless
known revolutions diurnal
and the cyclic swing of earth
in its year long voyage
in praise of wisdom
gifted by the star sol.
To know a billion years unaltered
and be in generation’s span
of always true to sun –
receiving the endless flow
of time’s nourishment
and the gracious matter
felt by every quivering leaf
as heat’s warm bosom
and light’s so gentle hand
– is first and only truth
within the kingdom
of father in heavens certainty.
To flourish is birthright
upon the world’s good earth;
and moss, guiltless in the whole,
takes its rightful place
among the children,
and thoughtless absorbs elation
as it was so lovingly sent.
Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2016
All are called
By the clock
To conform
To the great weight
Of pendulum earth
Oscillating
In the deep groove
Of the universe.
But we’re still offered
A second or two’s grace
To find
Our own pulse
In time’s
Unwinding.
© Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2015
I could drink the mist
With inward
Passage
Of breath
Cool and wholesome
To the lungs,
An air
Weighted moist
And though
Still vapour
No less fluid
Deeply quenching
Organs
In their need
To thirst.
Are we not
All sponges,
Open pored,
In-fluxed
And anointed?
Are we not
Osmosed
In love?
© Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2015
From the intangible
Dream
Of mist
Subtle in earth’s
Morning breath,
Droplets
Condense
In webs,
Bringing them silver
And whole to the cool,
Tracing threads globular
And mapping invisible
In networks of spheres.
© Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2015
The earth’s pulse
Is felt:
Some attune,
Some tarry,
Some skip ahead,
But all
Are gathered
In the end.
© Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2015
Now
With reluctant light
The wet earth
Breathes at last,
Breaks its dry fast
And puts
The eager tendril
Of must and spore rot,
Conveyed in shadow-damp,
To the dismantlement.
For what falls –
The withered leaf,
The stem, no longer turgid,
The petals browning,
– Mould will impregnate
And make an earthly scent
In season rich lament
And sad fermentation
Of soil and soul bound things
Untethered and unfettered
In their sinking sleep
And matters cool release
From forms previous.
© Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2015
He travels in the secret of the night,
moving on moon beams
and star sent messages.
On the wind too, he walks.
As he moves he rustles
as if he plays the breeze with his fingertips.
And those digits
are woody and knotted
yet supple as the curling vine.
🌾
His face is verge of mischief
and the unkept beard,
a hedgerow masterpiece
whiskered with unruly grass.
If his eyes were a conker’s shine
he would own a chestnut glance
but much more,
for they are shooting
surely as when spring inspires
their energies
to break the woody carapace,
and yet there is a green tinge
to the white wonder of his seeing;
Oh yes, oh yes there really is!
🌾
His bark laugh is the humorous same
as his quick eyes
and just as warm
as the mammalian heart,
though the sap is not viscous hot
but cool sweet honey dew.
Did I mention his hair?
The willow would be shamed
though his is not weeping but platted:
but still the wind plays,
and those low branches
dangle quite mysterious
so he must sweep aside
once in a storm filled while.
🌾
If ever there was a cloak
then he wears it:
and the moon might lose itself
in its forest folds,
and the vale too might be snuggled
as it’s creatures scurrying
on a blackberry and foxglove floor.
🌾
And now to his work,
for this be his reason and magic:
his green fingered love of seasons told.
🌾
First the winter – dead of earth:
where he waters and plans.
🌾
And then to the spring:
where he stoops to each friend
and coaxes the bud delicate.
And to this he breathes
his loam breath
and whispers succulence
to pale leaf-lets
in their parasol and first yawning.
🌾
And then summer:
where his nights are short and warm
and sometimes scent filled,
where he stands proud and bold,
wide eyed and watchful
as any owl,
admiring each of his delightful flowers.
🌾
And then the rich autumn:
where his desires and dreams
are a seed pod in multitude.
For when he walks there is a scattering,
and fertile sparks come off him
in droppings and ricochets,
as if the night contained
the whole of something
and much more beyond time’s now.
And as he strides the land,
his mischief smile somehow commands
his bough arms and his finger tips,
to spit and flick
the pips of newness
in every direction:
his delight and charm in one,
that he might hide the seeds of his creation,
plant wherever so he shouldn’t,
obey the only rule
worth a leaf’s weight
and cast hither and thither
the riddle of the rampant plant,
that knows no bounds
and tries and hopes
in every crevice to the world there found.
🌾
And so, too his intended:
to germinate and split
the kernel or the nut or the seed
and free the cornucopian light,
release it to the unwitting world,
like his life
and his evergreen smile.
© Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2015
There are worlds
Within the world
Spheres within spheres
Expressions expressing
Fractals in patterns
Again and again
More and more
In the deepening
In the depth
In the giving
In the breadth
In the repetition
Of real realness.
© Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2015
And the mother said
You can turn on my earth
And in a trice
My children
Will be upon
The glistening clods
To do their colonising
And consoling work.
And you may desert
The plentiful place
And turn it bland
With monoculture,
Dampen
The flourishing
With chemical
And beings augmented
And superior
All the while
Dashing yourself down.
But I will love you nevertheless.
And you may
Stricken the fertile
And the life giving,
Blemish it,
Injure it
And put it
To dust
And stone
And I will scar
For your learned eye
And then turn beautiful
With rest
And time
Fallow and forgiving.
And you may
Use me
Like your own heart used
And cut me
As your own blood flows
And deny me
As your own
Loneliness is made
In the crucible of your intention
And I will love you still
And whole
And love you
As only the land,
In its richness can
For killing is not mine
Nor
My children’s
And as the world turns
I will be
As I have been;
The force
The spirit
The energy
The lick of love
The empty space
The possibility
The lift
Behind it all,
The reason
And creativity
Rolling on, and endlessly on.
© Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2015.
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