inspiration

In The Garden Of Rooms

~ distilledvoice ~ Leave a comment

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One enters through a gate in an old stone wall. There is a peaceful lawn surrounded by herbaceous boarders leaning against wisteria capped, flint studded masonry. Clematis crowns in places: in pinks and white cataracts and green, gushing falls. Shrubs flower in every corner. Great blowsy peonies glimpse from their folds and white finery. Bluebells peep from the underworld and ferns cling to high crevices. At the far end of the sky ceilinged room is an opening in the brickwork. One enters via stepping stones tattooed with the slow engravings of lichens.
In the next room the light is altered and flowers are blue and purple in hue and temperament. Scents are heavy and cool. An archway of twisted and gnarled wood is split by the epoch of vine held flowers: fists unclenched and offering nectars on tiny, fleshy instruments: stamens, pollen clad and bumbled at by the benediction of bees.
In the next room there is the deep scent of peace held in a nook and grotto of silence. More are the plant beings. More is the air and humming of insects in nectarous impulse.
In the next there is a goddess of love who owns the still moment and offers more to those who dally in the mood of her wishes.
In the next there are doorways to secrets, and paths to hidden worlds and spaces clean as streams born new from bubbling wellsprings.
In the next there are deeper things for the mind to fathom.
In the next there is the heart of the world and a fountain to which the lips might sip life’s generous bequeathment and know yet more doorways to the fragrant beyond.
In the next room…….
And in the next…….

Equality

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Whether tended rose, vine
Or weed in bramble entanglement
We yearn the same dream:
And equal upon the earth
Take sustenance
In sunshine on the cheek,
Leaf or flowering petal.
We are the same in love
And level in our needs.
We are not different in our beings
Or our brotherhood.
We are one under the sun
And one in our differing.
We are together in our reach
For the sky blue expansion
Of life’s meaning.

© Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2015

Jump For Joy (Inspired by and dedicated to Jump For Joy! Photo Project)

~ distilledvoice ~ 1 Comment

First the intent.
Then crouching down,
Amassing, compiling, collecting
Energy in the spring of the self.

Then the trigger point,    unlatched…

Then the uncoiling of the self

A   N   D
T   H   E
S   U   D   D   E    N
W  H   O   O   S   H

As what was contained
Is released
In
A
Wondrous
Expansion,

Where
What
Is
Yet
To
Be
Conceived

Is
In
That
Instant
Possible,

A moment high
And without contrasting force
Or opposition.

The creative act:
The Freedom
To be oneself

And fly
Like we were meant to.

© Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2015

Inspired by and dedicated to Jump for Joy! Photo Project

The Cottage Garden Calls

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Something in the heart of the
gardener is drawn to create worlds
in patches of light and shade’s cool pools.
Something calls to make
billowing folds, pockets
and patchworks of flowers, floral
coverings and scented seas
for the lucky summer breeze.
Something calls for the bees and
their burrowing, smothering search
for bliss. Something calls. Something
calls. Something calls.

© Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2015.

Cascade Of Wisteria

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There is no air sweeter
Than in May’s cascade
Of colour, billowing
With purple ether
And the lightest elements
That plants might contrive.

Their sexual expression
In fragrant perfection
And tiers of pale lilac
Flowers given
Is the real ‘who’
Of who they really are.

© Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2015.

I Would Be An Artist – A Wish

~ distilledvoice ~ Leave a comment

In a room filled with light
I would find my art
In the murmurings
Of my feelings
Introspect and widening.

I would take the time, and with it
Fashion a beautiful gift, spin the light
To fabricate a tapestry of seeing, in which I
Might gaze and find things as yet
Unformed in my understanding.

There would be so much light
And so much time. And my looking
Would both absorb and bring forth
The art of my living. I would live to the
Fullest I could live, happy in the dream
Of ever finding.

© Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2015.

To The Garden I Go

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To the garden I go,
To pace the concrete path
Bordered by greenery.
I examine the bud, then the tender
Shoot delicate in its unfold, changing
Each day imesaursbly. I witness the
Plant beings flush under the sun, their
Greenness quivering, their buoyancy
Mesmerised to reach for the high
Happy sky.

I step away for but a spell and to my
Returning astonishment I find a new
Garden, in place of the wonder I had
Left, yet more richly itself and bolder
In its expansive space.
The air too I breathe and find thankful
To my lungs, for the garden’s world is
Richly textual, a sensation in to which
I too unfold, as if all my wanting
Dreams of elsewhere heavens had
Been called home and yoked to the
Simple matter of a flower’s beautiful
Event.

Nymans Garden – A Picture

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Someone, a time ago, painted a
picture in the living stream of garden
beings. Their beautiful idea, via seed
and years of seasons, and the tender
touch of gardeners’, comes to me as
this:

A flush of crimson azalea.
And there a grotto in which generous
rhododendron blush and bloom in
roughs and frills.
And there peonies unclasped.
And there cherry pinks and white
petals lazily falling.
And there a dappled garden of
magnolia, like so many flamingos,
proud swans and poised egrets alight
each bough and branch.
And beneath in clusters: fritillary,
anemone and daffodils.
As if all were floating on a magical
mist of sunrise beginnings and first
dew drop breaths of times absolute
unfolding newness.

If I were an artist I might use this
fertile gift and call good thoughts
from fresh enriched wholesomeness
and wish them forward, so in a time
ahead, someone might find what I
have found and be likewise captive
and spellbound by nature’s gladness
to willingly adhere to the picture’s trellis.

© Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2015