Newly minted air
Made new by the night
Holds spring
In its spaciousness.
The world is awake
And tender
As the first-born greens
Of beginnings
Brought forth
Again, and yet again
In timelessness.
Being dances
To the steadiness
Of the sun,
Lives as a prayer
To the becoming of the one
Who holds
The delicate flower
And weight of the earth
And else innumerable,
All secure
In boundless,
Infinite nothingness.
In the wind chime caressed
By a breath,
And in that very same breeze
On which birds chirp and caw
And flute about the day,
And in the corrugated iron roof
Tink-tinking with a lungful
Of sunshine,
Expanding its sun-trap back
And stretching like a luxuriant cat,
And in the lofty Scots pine
Whose needling fronds
Reach like sensing fingertips
Deep into the infinite:
These all
Are the measure of happiness.
Under soft February light
Where warming ethers
Carry earthy scents,
I remember my spring self
Among crocuses.
And yet again my heart is lifted
By the tide turn
Of day-length stretched,
Being motivated
To peep as a myriad
First shoots.
And yet again
The soft spell
Light upon my heart
Shimmers hazy
As sunbeams diffuse
In the mellow heavens,
And I can’t quite tell
If this space myself
Is me or the world
Or just spring’s fluid
Billowing out from itself.
I step into absolute stillness.
On the horizon
Mist shifts in ethereal veils.
The houses on the hill disrobe
Slipping from their misty dreams
As the sun begins in the East.
I step into absolute stillness.
The oranges of early morning
Warm my cheek and raise
A fresh scent from the succulents
As they absorb the first light.
The stillness pervades
Holding all things:
Beauty arises
In all that is worldly,
Both natural and made
Are vivid in the same way,
Reality seems to have a texture I can taste,
One which my eyes drink in.
I breathe a luxurious breath.
I exist
And I step into absolute stillness.
Ⓒ Ben Truesdale 2020
Joy in the twittering birds
Alight the air,
The wingbeat uplifting;
A fleeting moment
Agrasp the twig in bud.
Joy in the first bees
Suddenly innumerable.
Joy in the fly
Sunning himself on the leaf,
Absorbing the nutrient
Of the sun.
Joy in the exuberance
Of every plant,
Plump on the moment.
Joy in the resonance
Of the wood pigeon’s throat,
The highlighting of treetops
And branching canopy.
Joy in the morning mist
Shrouding the distance,
Enrobing the far away
In a joyous dream.
Joy in the saxophone
Wafting from the neighbours garden.
Joy in the children’s voices
Lost in the their play.
Joy in the sound of a car
Thrumming up the hill.
Joy in the stink of cat shit
Enlivened by the warmth.
Joy in the body
And joy in the body of the world.
Joy in everything.
The morning is sweet
With the bird’s high ether,
Trill, and as full
As their abandon.
The air is warm and fragrant,
Infiltrated with wood smoke
And the earth’s low savour.
In a faraway glance,
The distance fades in to mist.
The morning in the breath is sweet.
In the sweet spring wonder
The bud of my life opens,
Synchronised with the buds
Of the earth.
The air contains me
And the quivering bird,
Its heart broken open,
Broken into song.
Morning is beautiful,
Fresh as imbibed breath,
Acknowledged
As spirits subtle vapour.
The scent is the hawthorn
Of my childhood,
When I first saw,
When my eyes were first open.
I am here again,
Bathed in deliciousness,
Open mouthed
That I should be.
Tell me there is no God
And I shall die in my garden
Breathing the wonder,
My brain obliterated
By the green spring
And the blackbird
Fluorescing
Music and magnitude
And wielding the shrill knife
Of beauty’s grievous wound,
And I will say nothing,
But put the pen
On the paper
And write my pitiful, joyous attempt
At the writing of it,
And die in my tears
And laugh in my tears,
And cry for the love
That kills me
As I feel
Its world-ending enormity.
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.
New air,
The first in the world
And light as spirit imbibed,
Holds the scent of morning.
And there is twittering
Of innumerable birds,
Joyous as the magnolia buds
In voluptuous opening.
For all things are expressing
Their being in timeless rebirth,
The song of spring
Once more alive.
distilledvoice 