A troop of goldfinch
Alight verbena,
Trapeze the bended stem
To plunder last year’s seeds
Now dry in the sheaf.
I recall last season’s butterflies
Tasting nectars,
Opening their sun drenched wing
Upon the purple heads,
And marvel now
At brotherliness:
Symbiosis motive in the world:
Investments dividend returned
In grateful harvests born
And born, and born again.
A Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2017
With March pleasant in the air
My gardener’s fingers
Find soil smudge
In their ready tips.
And the light footed heart
Of daffodil magic
And sunshine breath
Skips like lambs
To the work of seeds
Pregnant in their trays.
And I think:
On days like these
It’s not only the lungs that breathe
But the skin
And the brain
And the body,
And I feel that with the mellow rays
Of springtime in the bird’s announcing,
Man really could be
True husband to the world
Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2016
In the miraculous fish
That come again and again
Like tide to the table
Forever sustained
And always providing
A predictable nourishment,
We encounter
The earthbound principle
Of abundance
Found in habitat
The world over.
If only we could open our eyes
To the reality of the fish
And discard
All those meagre imposters
Who swim the dark waters
Of our fearful minds,
Whispering demise
Instead of flourishing
On currents
Of forever replenishing
And upwellings of bringing
That swell in offering
Despite our reluctance to see.
Copyright 2016 Ben Truesdale & distilledvoive
Still the dogged pioneer spirit
Owning protocol and government.
Still the époque of first footsteps
On the shore of the new world.
Still strident explorers
Followed by makeshift populous.
Still the gold-rush
For buried commodity.
Still value of money
Above the the richness of place.
Still the dampening
Of primitive voice.
Still the damaging hand
Assassinating loveliness.
*
These are the end times
Of carelessness,
The deep tectonic shift
In the solitary man,
In the mind
Of every man,
From rootless
To gia-joined:
The umbilicus revealed
In waking of earth
In the feeling body
And connection
To all that was disembodied
And heartless pushed out.
These are the end times
And times of new beginning.
Copyright 2016 Ben Truesdale & distilledvoice
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
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
From wooden boxes
Her land
Unclasps
Still warm,
Knobbly tomatoes,
Imperfectly formed
But flush
With the colour of the sun.
Likewise, the just picked grapes,
Dusty with botrytis,
Contain the same
Sun-drunk quality.
And the wine
Decanted
With a funnel
In to re-used plastic containers
Is matter of fact,
Poured for its sweetness
And personality’s distillate,
Not for any labelled
Contradiction
Or propulsion
Of aggressive advert.
With a shrug of her shoulders
The woman says the only thing
She need ever say
To anyone:
‘I am, as I am.’
© Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2015
Fruiting bodies
Like fleshy fingers
Examining the other world,
Of air and light.
And beneath
In the thready net,
Mycelium reach
Through the body
Of the earth
Drawing nutrient
From the discarded clothes
Of everything
Let loose
And shed.
The raw components
Once more
Spent
In transition
Of beneficence
Reinvigorated.
© Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2015
In to liquid
I slip sensual,
My skin
To the blue meniscus
Dipped and coated
And consumed
Until forgetting
Of boarders.
My being
Whole blended
In blue amnion
Aquiver
With silver light
And beams
Of aqua marine
Shimmering in electric fathoms.
© Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2015
Sometimes
He is broad as thicket
Or enclave copse.
Sometimes
He is thin and sparse,
With but an eyebrow’s tuft
Skirting the field boundary.
Sometimes
He is lone bramble
Upon a flat plain.
But always,
Wherever he rests
He is tangle
And vegetal mess
Of thorn ramble
And nettle,
Dry stick and twine
Woven to nest
By birds
Who feel the home
In his charity.
If he had friend
In the human field
He’d call scarecrow
Brother,
For he too is silent
And watchful,
And made
with a bundle
Of dry stems
Plumping the body
Of his jacket.
But still he is beautiful
Though he is ragged:
For in April
He is delicate
With hawthorn
And blackthorn bloom.
And in June
His foxglove reach
Invites bees
To a hundred purple gullets.
And wild honeysuckle
Are his delicate hands
And the pale instruments
Of his fingertips.
And upon his brow
Are white elder crowns,
Sunward seeking
And scented.
In September
He is ripe and juicy
With the blood of elderberries
And the pert invitation
Of blackberries strung
Like necklaces,
Many and fruitful.
And crab apples,
Hard as stones
Grow gnarled
While sloes
And wild plums
Are succulent on every
Loaded bough
And branches’ reverent bow.
And always
At his feet
Are the rustling species,
Snuffling and foraging
The dry shadows:
The timid shrews,
The field mice twitching,
The hedgehog unfurled
And fearless
And the Badgers
Trotting pathways:
All these
His tender friends
And tenants
To the openness
Of his limbs,
Gathered snug
To his rosehip chest
And the leafy beneficence
Of his embrace,
Herbaceous and enveloping.
© Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2015
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