Photograph by Reka Jellema. July 2014.
A Heron Green
a beckoning to hither come a heron green rose from a swamp and sounding frogs a song commenced a tune to raise the dead, a humming like the drone of singing bowls besieged the heavens a peasant moon peeked from the gathered snow clouds, dark and loud I have slowed slowed as an icicle slows my blood far south of ponderance and pooled unmoving my vapour breath my emissary my beckoning in cloud my heron green to penetrate the ceiling I have made the frigid cumulus covering stilling this first snow coating the fresh grave the dead remain prone, stone pillows for their heads their names a beckoning By Reka Jellema and Brendan Bonsack Copyright Reka Jellema & Brendan Bonsack January 2015  Photograph by Reka Jellema. 1.
A sky full of intangibles The veins of our leaves grew trees River planted, skyward flung Suppose we weep or shiver every extremity crescendos into fugue 2. Raking the wind scooping wrens into nests our trunks bellowed elephant knees, elbows, we shuffled gaudy with red and yellow 3. As we allow the shadow`s play on skin let`s rest awhile, my love beneath a leafy aspect Spreading blankets let the soft caress run over us As unfelt touch As language we`ve yet to decipher 4. Ever more than bough or bark Roughed up, prickled Bearing fruit and seed, sticky with pine sap aloof or bowed We are the leaves dependent on the stem Connections break A slip, a grounding, We are ever more than our discardings 5. Oh the glorious arching Monet`s finery undressed Limbs stretched in forward bend Driving cars beneath a slender grace Fingers meet above their heads Light falling as rain 6. A stand of trees Roots ingrained in sandy soil Sustained and sturdied by ten thousand particles Becoming one with debris decomposing 7. Bits of bone the lesser relics of these urchins once Arboreous, we are host who live in thee and sup upon thy sap and stroke the slippery green 8. And in our rings a wisdom and a history Stories wrought That tell of fire, drought Of chilling winds Of hindered growth Lines concentric As the rhythm of a season Eulogies for all who care to read them 9. Twining ivy wends a thinning crown The rusted claws burrow ever deep, upon the mass of us Pollards, cankers pruning cavities Our bodies pucker hedging toward conformity 10. needles skitter scatter soft a knitted throw of forest floor and moss Hither, yon hardwood knock- kneed over-toppled A tired majesty at rest upon a quiet quilt Step lightly round the fallen 11. Battened planks - brothers from another life, embedded nails in flesh The rooms they built The blossom plucked, arranged in honey jars Gazing down on lives arrayed in verdant expectation 12. Do this for me Do nothing here but be breathe I reach and reach Still all who enter, you shall not come closer to the truth than now Stilled by us En masse By Reka Jellema and Kathryn Ross Copyright Reka Jellema and Kathryn Ross September 2014 |
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