As Ponds Reflect

As Ponds Reflect

As ponds reflect

The trees and sky

So do we

Reflect

People and places

Around and

Held

Within ourselves.

Simon C.J. Falk 24 May 2021

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More #WATWB coming soon!

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Beginning with Whitman

As I see and hear the various responses to the marathon that is the USA Presidential Election I wonder what that means.  I am not an expert on anything, let alone politics.  However, we can all recognise, even in some small way, the longings in the hearts and minds of our fellow travelers.  As I think on this, my wonder alights on the various North American literary figures who have passed through my hands, eyes, mind and heart.  I was drawn to this handsome edition of Walt Whitman‘s ‘Leaves of Grass’ (San Diego: Canterbury Classics, 2015).

The quote countersunk into the back cover reminds us that what can affect you, can affect me and, indeed, so many others.

 

 

Poets and other literary persons can assist us at times when we find ourselves searching. Perhaps it re-awakens a search in you.   You may also enjoy ‘I Just Realized’ by ‘The Bookshelf of Emily J.’

Who Trod These Paths and What are Their Tales?

Who Trod These Paths and What are Their Tales?

How many times have you heard the expression: “if only these walls could talk?”  I’ve had that thought about pathways, seaways, rivers and landforms. They hold stories.   Two paths in the images I included here hold stories of their own.  The poem tries to get a feel, however incompletely, for the story under the surface.

 

Who Trod These Paths and What are Their Tales?

Who trod these paths?

What voices do they give?

What are their tales?

How did they live?

First Picture: A scene from Pioneer Park Lookout, Griffith NSW, Australia.

(i)

Way back in the Dreamtime,

Shapes formed in the land,

Great marsupials and serpents,

Gathered as a band,

They came,

They ate,

They played,

They strayed,

And so began another day.

People came to tread upon

This earth with shoeless foot,

They hunted with the spear

And the boomerang they tossed.

They walked upon this hillside,

As to other lands

They crossed.

They communicated with message stick,

Traded food and skin,

They came across the white fella,

And now both dwell therein.

Tourists tread along this path,

And youngsters doin’ their thing,

In the grating of the gravel,

And the rustling leaves,

We hear their stories sing.

 

 

Second Picture: ancient gateway in the old city of Rhodes (Rodos) in the Greek Island group.

(ii)

Peoples disembarked upon this isle,

Greeks and Turks

If you please.

Add mixes of Italians,

Even the Maltese.

There were Spartans, sparsely clothed,

But tough and fierce and strong,

And Crusading knights

Who came to smite,

And hold their banquets long.

Fisher folk and traders,

The powerful and the slaves,

Those on land and waders,

The mature as well as knaves.

Battles won and lost here,

And even change of names,

From Rhodes to Rodos we hear

Tourists pronounce in ancient lanes.

Some gather for the markets,

Others for historic sights,

In busy tourist seasons,

Cafes and beaches

Are crowded in at nights.

But in the age-old pounding

Of waves from o’er the sea,

The archaic tales are sounding,

Of the indentured and the free,

Inviting into the story,

People

Like you and me.

 

 

Simon C.J. Falk     30 October 2016

 

God Came to Tea – Guest Post #postingforpeace

This is a guest post that comes from the World Community for Christian Meditation .  All rights to this poem belong to

John J. Keohane

God Came to Tea Today

 

Reflections – Inspired by Cherish Blogfest 24,25,26 July 2015

Reflections

I already had a post in the #Cherished Blogfest .  But it has inspired me to keep going.  Reflections are part of our lives.  Both the reflections we see and the ones that take us on a journey inside with our inner eye.

 Reflections

Reflections
Enter our lives
Resplendent

And radiant

Shadowed

And

Shiny too.

How wondrous they are!

To be in them,

In concert with

The rhythm of them.

So much the better

Than

A captured image

Of photograph

Or screen –

Copyrighted, of course!

Ah, but

To be present

To them as they

Are to us.

To sniff the unconstructed air

To feel the feather-soft

Lakeside humus

Underfoot.

Foot of fowl

Of beast

And halting human

Like myself.

Soil soft

As the down

Of ducks drifting by,

Their low quacks

Alerting friends –

In a ducky dialect

Unbeknownst to me –

That

A human

Is here.

Reflections that

Still us 

Suspend us

And,

Holding us 

In a gasp and sigh

So deep

That it reverberates

Silently within.

And then

The reflection

Turns in and out

And about us.

We bow our inner selves

In reverence

Before the majesty

Grateful

And full,

Sated and

Brimming over

In a deeply felt

Knowledge of sorts.

Knowledge

That we too can

Reflect

And radiate

Like the scenes.

We reflect within and without,

In concert

With the reflecting

and resonance

Of the cathedral of creation

Around us:

In a refracting dewdrop,

A lake,

A beloved’s eyes;

All of them

Replete with splendour.
Simon C.J. Falk. 22 August 2015