POEMS FROM

MICHAELMAS

I walk out under the October sky,
Free from illusion,
And hear dry ghosts of summer scuttle by;
And heart's confusion,
Swept from my soul on the clean autumn wind,
Blows with the leaves,
While memory that in time of green I sinned
Remains and grieves.
But grief is calm in this keen, conscious air,
And longing quelled.
That fool's dream which was all my being's care
At last dispelled;
And in my own lean selfhood I must stand,
A leafless tree,
That each fall is unclothed at God's command,
Its sinews free.
All unadorned by the seductive spring
Is autumn's soul,
And I recall the great essential thing
Is self-control.


NOVEMBER

An Ur-gray day in November,
Day of slate rain and perpetual dusk,
When memory is melancholy,
And hope an intellectual husk.


Gone the living flame of color
That lit the mellow mid-October mood.
Gold dwindles to despondent twilight,
When the soul finds old reasons to brood.


How may the soul's anemic landscape
Be suffused anew with radiant Sun,
Color spanning the heart's horizon,
Rainbow shine of human hope begun?


NOEL

'I' have been my own religion,
And I weary of the cult.
I have lavished the best years of my life
Bringing to birth
A baffled, untrusting babe,
Wailing in a winter stable;
A babe bereft, yet sly,
Ever-awaiting the homage of the three kings,
While I leave the humble shepherds
On the cold hillside,
Tending the sheep
Which were commended to my care,
Should I grow to humanhood.
O, where is my bright twin,
The child of Light,
The Christmas rose,
That grows in granite?



WINTER REFLECTION

If I could turn my heart around, how all my world would change.
Instead of seeing only me, I'd have a wider range,
To look into the circling round that is the life of Earth,
To peer beneath the winter's crust where cradles spring's
rebirth.


If I could turn my heart around, I'd gaze up to the skies
And let the joy of Stars flood in, to sparkle in my eyes.
And then I'd spy the Moon's caprice, which often rules my mood,
And set that orb beneath my feet and vow to serve the Good.


If I could turn my heart around, then my own heart would be
A Sun that spread its warming rays to all surrounding me.
With Stars for eyes and heart of Sun would come the deepest
sight,
To look into another's heart and read that heart aright.



THE CIRCLING ROUND

In autumn I swallow the sky,
Not in one great gulp,
But small mouthfuls, mellow gold.
By November I am quaffing cups of clouds,
Then tankards of twilight,
'Til I am filled to brimming
With winter
And the wide night,
A whole firmament of memories,
The inside of sky,
That for a space
Belongs to me.
Sun is my bright Christmas companion,
Moon, my moody roommate,
And Stars, my wise reflective friends,
Who, in winter's listening quiet,
Speak with less reserve.


But by Candlemas, I cough up thoughts,
Reviewing mysteries, but restlessly.
A stream of blue escapes my lips,
A thread of sky that begs to be respun.
I clutch at Stars,
But one by one
They flick away and fade.
Moon is moodier than ever,
Impatient to be gone.
And Sun, the solace of my night,
Begins its slow ascent
From heart to throat to mouth,
Robbing me of warmth
And the willingness to wait for spring.
The sky outbreathed,
And I, a hollow cask
With staves of winter bones.
But then, one Star,
Who graciously remained,
Revives in me an Easter Thought,
A hint of Light,
That ceaseless Dawn
Behind all skies,
All seasons of the heart.

POEMS FROM
THE CIRCLING ROUND",
Seasons Of The Soul
Spring to Summer
(Unpublished collection)

MARCH

Someone said April is cruelest,
But March is the villain to me,
Winter's old bones still protruding,
And the world decked in last fall's debris.


As drab and chill as November,
But then we were patient, resigned.
December dark was descending,
And starlight invaded the mind.


The night of the world is too long,
Then March starts to hint about day.
It teases our eyelids with light,
But Easter is light-years away!


The beginning of hope is pain,
Like March, the pale herald of Sun.
A soft crocus poking through snow
Is the heart, where spring has begun.


SPRING

The urge to lose self,
To rise, diffuse,
Escape like a sigh
Towards far periphery.
I put to bed on a worn shelf
My winter muse,
And head for the sky
And silver reverie.


Mother-of-pearl Moon
Welcomes me home,
Her watersilk beams
Blurring my memory;
And mild, indulgent Sun at noon
Sends me a poem,
Repaying in dreams
The winter's penury.


First of God's reprieves
From grief and cold,
Spring-tints hint of sleep
And deeper greenery;
Until the sky, alive with leaves
And blinding gold,
Lets my spirit steep
In cosmic scenery.


GOOD FRIDAY

Good Friday,
And how do you fare?
Where is the enraptured girl
Who ran trembling to the church door
Every Lenten morning
To spend her heart on the crucified Christ.
Dipping dream fingers into the holy font,
Light years from the kitchen tap,
She began her day
And her glorious penance,
Blunting the knives of night fears
And the cruel edges of day eyes.
"Crucify Him"...
Her voice was in that crowd.
She and the rest of proud humanity
Had killed the spotless Lamb of God.


Good Friday,
And how do you fare?
Where along the road to Calvary
Did you drop your rosary,
Exchange your crown of thorns
For a headful of headlines,
Put your breathless young atonement
On indefinite hold?
And now, nearly old,
You cry for crucified humanity,
A billion 'spotted' lambs.


Yet you love Easter.
You want Easter without Good Friday,
Yearn in the shimmering Easter dawn
To meet
The Gardener,
Whose body of golden clouds
Holds up the sky.



EASTER MORN

Thudding of chill rain
On the chapel roof,
Washes away the Blood of the Lamb,
But not the memory of pain
Or the need for proof.


In this cosmic hour,
We require sun,
The high festival of the senses,
Fullness of light, Pan's sweet power,
Not the Risen One.


Yet Angels implore us
To commence Seeing
The Rescuer of Earth existence,
Who walks in the gloom before us,
A Sun-bright Being!





SUMMER SOLSTICE

We are all mad worshipers of the waxing Sun,
DevoteÈs of light,
Bedizzened by the splendor of cosmic day,
After sober night.


Once more senses' might crowns the spectacular Sun
King of creation,
As fay butterflies rise to His fiery throne
For immolation.


Yet something is withheld in our heavenward flight,
In spite of beauty.
We devoted children of deep December Earth
Remember duty.

©2000 Joanna Nealon