Write Out Loud - Poetry Blogs (Ullswater)

Ullswater Requiem (7)

VII Libera me A Prayer

Let me drop a pebble to that surface
and watch its ripples run out perfect
and see a fish rising from the depths,
a pebble cast by water into sky,
and thos two rings meeting, interfering,
intermingling, intersecting but still perfect,
each still unbroken in its way:
A criss-cross message of place and time.

Believe. We shall not be alone whatever
faith...

Saturday 12th May 2012 9:33 am

Tags: Ullswater,poetry

Ullswater Requiem (6)

by Mike Smith

VI Lux Aeternum A Celebration
The sky's sheet ice, the blood of sunset drained away.
Clouds are gatherd in like nets at the horizon.
Rose petals of last light are floating in
an awkward angle of the bay. Crows are
litter, whirled in a corner of the air.
The steamer's wake has met itself returning.
Some say this is the old day's dying, as if
no dawn will break; but not me. I see...

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Tuesday 8th May 2012 7:51 pm

Tags: poetry,Ullswater

Ullswater Requiem (5)

by Mike Smith

V Lacrimosa Weeping

I did not witness this. I saw the lake.
Ripples run towards me every day.
I cannot read them all. The steamer makes
eight beats per second by my clock, no more.
Yet I must speak or what’s the watching for?
My words must face you square and eye to eye.
We are each other’s strangers of goodwill.
Tears bind us; the sky; mountains, and fire.

Tomorrow they&...

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Monday 7th May 2012 10:06 pm

Tags: poetry,Ullswater

Ullswater Requiem (4)

by Mike Smith

IV Quid sum miser The Bereaved

Crossing a mountain stream once in bare feet
you could not keep yourself from crying out,
sliced by that scalpel cold, burned by its ice.

An avalanche of cold enfolded them.
Only an inch or two beneath it’s cold
as graves. Stone cold where the sun can’t penetrate.
Rivers of cold run deep along the lake.

Perhaps it helps to have a faith, be...

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Sunday 6th May 2012 9:18 am

Tags: poetry,Ullswater

Ullswater Requiem (3)

by Mike Smith

III Recordare Memory

You remember once yourself slipping off
the narrow shelf of Ullswater.
You were no swimmer at all and had waded out like them
beyond the glimmer of sunlight on rocks below,
walking on a cliff edge in a mist,
and only when you felt the stones begin
to slip and shift knew you were on the lip
of some commencing underwater fall.

You had rowed singing over the water...

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Saturday 5th May 2012 2:08 pm

Tags: poetry,Ullswater

Ullswater Requiem (2)

by Mike Smith

II Tuba Mirum The Bringing of the News

Whatever moves above it or below
disturbs the surface: Writes its passage:
weight: speed: bulk: hull: body: keel and fin:
the changing pressure of the wind.
A drowning man will tell his tale
as clearly as a fishing heron can.
Today it’s briefly mute: What lives below
is motionless. The wind is starved of breath.

Here three boys died a f...

Friday 4th May 2012 4:27 pm

Tags: Ullswater,poetry

Ullswater Requiem (1)

by Mike Smith

I Dies Irae The Anger of the Water

Here’s where I stand. I read the lake each day.
Beyond our reach it changes endlessly.
Sometimes it's dark as ice. Sometimes it's broken glass,
Sometimes like metal streaked where boats have passed,
Sometimes with ripples regular as sound.
Sometimes it’s like a sky: Sometimes a pit.
Sometimes it’s white capped, rough.
Som...

Thursday 3rd May 2012 12:08 pm

Tags: poetry,Ullswater

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