71. Gillian Swain's 'Not so light' - for Clark Gormley

 

 

Not so light

Gillian Swain 

 

Sometimes no amount of springtime

will shake the weight of winter

the kind rained in with sadness.

 

Not the filtered sunlight

not the soft shield of leaves

nor the shrill colours singing from the yard.

Not the clear endlessness of new blue

nor the soft pillowed pink of dusk.

 

Some springtime is overshadowed

the lilt of a day with unleashed sadness hangs

the way tree branches 

seem to sag 

and ache

looking for sunlight.

 

 

 

70. Julie Simpson's 'Zen Gardeners' - inviting Eve Gray up the garden path

                                                                        Zen gardeners  

 

Raked gardens imitate water 

a distant mountain looks

                                                                 like borrowed scenery

maple leaves flutter

                                                                  freshly raked gravel

ripples in a silent stream

as a patient Zen gardener

clears a path for insight

as a young monk meditates

 one brown sandal damming

  his river of stroked stones

 old monk ignores Gymea lilies

looking for straight answers

the full moon’s reflection

 symbol of Enlightenment

 shivers in the lily pond

 mimicking in miniature

  each praying man's

 imperfect

  focus.

 

 

 

 

Revised version of a poem previously published in The Perfect Diary.

69. Ronald Atilano's 'Rock Garden - inviting Julie Simpson into the garden

 

Rock Garden

After a visit to Daisen-in

 

In the temple courtyard,

rocks narrate

water’s biography.

 

It starts with a waterfall,

stones leaping

from a precipice,

like youth

plunging headlong,

spread-eagled,

into the air.

 

From there, the rocks

flow on, forming a river

where a solitary boat

is passing, oared

by a ferryman,

tireless and diligent,

as the bonsai watches

from shore.

 

The river ends,

the rocks gathering

in an ocean of white—

silent, eternal—

the waves lapping

at the feet of two

mystical islands.

 

My eyes wander back

to the river:

a turtle-shaped rock

that seems to swim

against the current,

desperate to go back

to the beginning,

the lost waterfall.

68. equinocity - Kit Kelen inviting Renee Pettitt-Schipp into the garden

 

equinocity

 

bright the rainleaf

now such rising

 

golden whistlers tell

spring and so we’ve come to flower

 

even the stone puts out

a lichen traipse map to be read

 

for music here’s roof

in the afterfalls      rhythm!

 

duck under the rain weighted limb then

gather to tune of sky

 

look out, see to the bounce

and bright the eye

 

as will the glisten tip

just everyone singing for it

 

a spangling, one might say

all the season jollies

 

a beak in the leaves of light

breath’s mist yet

 

so come to the middle of just where we are

so shine

 

give the hour away

67. Mark Liston's 'The Bloom Speaks' for Gillian Swain

 Mark Liston's 'The Bloom Speaks' for Gillian Swain

The poem I want to write is fading from my mind the words I need won’t 

float onto a page empty as silence. One or so surfaced phrases flit but 

disappear as bubbles vanishing when reaching their freedom 

as another sound unborn until a slow meditation

a mantra left to float as lotus flowers in a low dish.

It may allow a blooming idea to be a thought to surface 

and gently open to speak.