untitled - 30 December 2013

What tales the earth
could tell if lips
she had to whisper
of lovers paused
to watch a sunset
glow or a woman
at a well long
grown over with
mildewed moss
and green upon
the grass where children
ran and played to
chase a squirrel
up a tree that
dropped an acorn
grown to giant
height where a
man was hung
for the colour
of his skin.
Oh earth could weep
if eyes she had,
with blood
they'd run through
Eden's idyllic
streams -
where serpent's
tongue held moment's
sway and bitter-joyous
choice was wrung
in favour for our gain.

© Eleanor Clark
30 December 2013

Joy Cometh in the Morning

Joy -
it comes after
angry, seething
sobbing nights

sometimes at
morning's first
light, but -

sometimes in
twilight
midnight
moments

in retrospect
the answers
come and
God has
heard and
still

in unexpected
calm and
peace
the billows fade
obscurely
by.

© Eleanor Clark
28 December 2013

Help

I could not
ask -
no, not for help.

I did not have
the words
or know how

to reach out
and say
I can't
go
on.

I didn't know
I didn't ask
and so you
didn't know
and could not
tell me what
I needed to hear.

I prayed for
someone
to hear
what could
not be said.

And in the
darkness
waited.

© Eleanor Clark
27 December 2013

Hope Lay Drowning

Hope lay drowning
and I -
without the will
to lift her out
let her gargle
in despair.

Faith hung dying
on gallows
bitter-strung
where her
legs kicked feebly
and I -

I did nothing.

For in my pain
and grief
and sorrow
I too lay
drowning
in twilight's
murky waters
and wrestled
with despair
that choking monster
that kills
unkindly too.

And love could
not rescue any
of us three -
for with the
daylight dawning
we had already
succumbed and
perished
in the night.

© Eleanor Clark
27 December 2013

Dying Wisdom

With greying hairs
now dotting
more frequently
the mirror glance -
and aches and
pains that more
readily creak on
winter mornings
as frost rises in the air -

Comes the realization
that perhaps the
future is a place of
fear and hope -
bereft of youthful
naïveté that fails
to see the weight
of responsibility
that gnaws away -
worrying deep into
the marrow of life.

Sickness - health
and hazy recollection
of dreams spun
with gossamer, silken
thread of wishful hope -
which now seems fancy
and foolish and vain

And gives pause to
the question of
whether to continue
on into the night.

© Eleanor Clark
22 December 2013

Small Hands, Big Hearts

For my nephew H -

In childhood's easy grace
we turned the pages
And whispered words
in voices small -
where more was said
than words on pages
read -
and passed an easy
hour amid these
mortal throes.
Perhaps eternity
can count the worth
of moments such,
that dwell in trees
of memory still -
where small hands
and voices large
blend in echoes
of the heart.

© Eleanor Clark
18 December 2013

untitled - 4 December, 2013

Bare winter bone
with arms outstretched
Enshrouded in the white -
the cloth of resurrection's spring

© Eleanor Clark
4 December 2013