#poetry4peace.wordpress.com

When you go by Edwin Morgan When you go, if you go, And I should want to die, there’s nothing I’d be saved by more than the time you fell asleep in my arms in a trust so gentle I let the darkening room drink up the evening, till rest, or the new rain lightly roused you awake. I asked if you heard the rain in your dream and half dreaming still you only said, I love you.

Self-Portrait as Bronze Age Burial MoundThe hearth is my heart. I amrooms of darkness and forgotten light.My language is the mid-winter sun.Whale-backed. Face-down.Burrowed into by rabbits.Burrowed into by rats.Ashes and teeth are my language. I carry the weight of responsibility.I am detailed in archaeological sketches,I appear huge on old maps, I loomon the skyline.My thoughts and secrets are…

Prayer Some days, although we cannot pray, a prayerutters itself. So, a woman will lifther head from the sieve of her hands and stareat the minims sung by a tree, a sudden gift. Some nights, although we are faithless, the truthenters our hearts, that small familiar pain;then a man will stand stock-still, hearing his youthin the distant Latin chanting of a train. Pray for us now. Grade 1 piano…

‘When the Birds Came’ – a new book of poems by Rose Cook

I’m really pleased to introduce my new book When the Birds Came. It shares new poems and takes you through my year. A year when the birds came. When the Birds Came is available now from Rose at: [email protected] at £5 plus p&p warmest wishes to you, Rose

The silence of pines

The silence of pines On a hot day they offer shade though I have always noticed them, a stand of tall pines. To be in their shadows such silence, sanctum. Dense grass, a scattering of cones, high in the crowns a wish of breeze where bees dance, down here though the gift is deep silence. Rose Cook photo Rose Cook 

June – time of blossom: Now summer is in flower and nature’s hum is never silent round her sultry bloom insects as small as dust are never done wi’ glittering dance and reeling in the sun… (from John Clare’s The Shepherd’s Calendar 1-4)     JUNE Month of the Summer with longer nights. Moon of horses Dyad moon Strawberry moon Summer Solstice Buzzards learn to fly. Dragonflies flash. Sunflowers…

Hope and Love by Jane Hirshfield

All winterthe blue heronslept among the horses.I do not knowthe custom of herons,do not knowif the solitary habitis their way,or if he listened forsome missing one-not knowing eventhat was what he did-in the blowingsounds in the dark.I know thathope is the hardestlove we carry.He sleptwith his long neckfolded, like a letterput away.

I really treasure this poem, it arrived softly, yet true. Brocade by Jane Hirshfield  All day wonderingif I’ve become useless. All day the osprey white and black,carryingbig dry sticks without leaves.  Late, I say to my pride, You think you’re the feathered part of this don’t you?  Photo Rose Cook