On the Necessity of Wandering
After the world has wearied me
with its woes
I wander into first light
engulfed in a dawn
of pale wheat weeds
of a soft breeze
blowing over this wild country
where bushes bramble in dry heaps,
black-green eucalypts rise high and sharp
against still higher hills
that seem to hold up the sky.
I lie down deep in the flaxen grass.
Singing-birds compose their territory
sun warms the morning
rose-breasted robins hang upside down
on the gnarled peach tree
plunge sharp beaks into yellow flesh.
Many creatures hide here--
we sigh, gaze, bite, sting,
buzz, bark, stalk, undulate,
meow and muse
each a song unto ourselves
and with the rise and fall of breath
we weave hope
thread strands of meaning
into each turn and search--
in and out of the light.
At the Headlands
before first light
before the dawn
into the cold misty breath of morning
I walk the rocky path
circling the cliffs above the sea
below on the dark lagoon
pods of brown pelicans
drift and float
drift and float
slow clouds part to prove the sun
turn fields of wild mustard into gold
and one-by-one pelicans begin
to beat their wings against the sea
three four more and more over and over
until sound lifts like silver cymbals
echoing off the air
at once without warning
hundreds of pelicans rise up from the sea--
showered in sun shafts
they fly into the sky above me.
I reach up to them
to touch their soft soaring bodies
marvel at the great stretch of wings
parting the air--
I long for flight,
wild to wing away with them…
but they disappear
disappear
disappear
Ode to an Ammonite
On my desk
encased in glass
locked in rock
hardened by time’s fires
embedded for eons
you’ve held yourself
in spun grace
spirals circling round
from the center
of your body,
embracing yourself.
I gaze at you
wonder at life
in the time of the dinosaurs.
Did you struggle in your death
when extinction came
buried in deep-earth’s layers
until hacked out of
Lyme Regis’ ancient cliff walls.
These few years
you’ve lived with me
but a gnats-egg of time
compared to your
rock-like existence.
Of your graceful remains
I’m envious,
could I leave such beauty
in my bones
as you’ve given me?
You’ll never know
having no consciousness
150 million years ago.
Could my old skeleton
inspire even one soul
before we become extinct?
Previously published in the MacGuffin, (Fall 2019, Vol
XXXV, No. 3)
Lisa Meckel has been published in Edison Review, Nimrod International
Journal, Rattle, Briar Cliff Review, Mirboo North Times, Victoria
Australia,Midwest Quarterly, The Paragon Journal and many more.
She is a three-time winner of the Poetry Prize at the Santa Barbara
Writers Conference and was a presenter for The Big Read honoring
Robinson Jeffers, Carmel, California.
After the world has wearied me
with its woes
I wander into first light
engulfed in a dawn
of pale wheat weeds
of a soft breeze
blowing over this wild country
where bushes bramble in dry heaps,
black-green eucalypts rise high and sharp
against still higher hills
that seem to hold up the sky.
I lie down deep in the flaxen grass.
Singing-birds compose their territory
sun warms the morning
rose-breasted robins hang upside down
on the gnarled peach tree
plunge sharp beaks into yellow flesh.
Many creatures hide here--
we sigh, gaze, bite, sting,
buzz, bark, stalk, undulate,
meow and muse
each a song unto ourselves
and with the rise and fall of breath
we weave hope
thread strands of meaning
into each turn and search--
in and out of the light.
At the Headlands
before first light
before the dawn
into the cold misty breath of morning
I walk the rocky path
circling the cliffs above the sea
below on the dark lagoon
pods of brown pelicans
drift and float
drift and float
slow clouds part to prove the sun
turn fields of wild mustard into gold
and one-by-one pelicans begin
to beat their wings against the sea
three four more and more over and over
until sound lifts like silver cymbals
echoing off the air
at once without warning
hundreds of pelicans rise up from the sea--
showered in sun shafts
they fly into the sky above me.
I reach up to them
to touch their soft soaring bodies
marvel at the great stretch of wings
parting the air--
I long for flight,
wild to wing away with them…
but they disappear
disappear
disappear
Ode to an Ammonite
On my desk
encased in glass
locked in rock
hardened by time’s fires
embedded for eons
you’ve held yourself
in spun grace
spirals circling round
from the center
of your body,
embracing yourself.
I gaze at you
wonder at life
in the time of the dinosaurs.
Did you struggle in your death
when extinction came
buried in deep-earth’s layers
until hacked out of
Lyme Regis’ ancient cliff walls.
These few years
you’ve lived with me
but a gnats-egg of time
compared to your
rock-like existence.
Of your graceful remains
I’m envious,
could I leave such beauty
in my bones
as you’ve given me?
You’ll never know
having no consciousness
150 million years ago.
Could my old skeleton
inspire even one soul
before we become extinct?
Previously published in the MacGuffin, (Fall 2019, Vol
XXXV, No. 3)
Lisa Meckel has been published in Edison Review, Nimrod International
Journal, Rattle, Briar Cliff Review, Mirboo North Times, Victoria
Australia,Midwest Quarterly, The Paragon Journal and many more.
She is a three-time winner of the Poetry Prize at the Santa Barbara
Writers Conference and was a presenter for The Big Read honoring
Robinson Jeffers, Carmel, California.