A haiku for Sunday

Quality of life
seized in every moment of
this Sunday of rest

©Jemverse

Picture – ‘Half Moon Bridge’ by Yoshida Toshi (1940)

For je ne sais quoi moments

I stood still in the meadow with winter around me
a hand raised there to the sun
My shadow still long
tho’ now bright my song
with a feeling that Spring had begun

It was a je ne sais quoi in that moment I felt
a fleeting moment in time
But the promise was there
quite willing to share
and unique as it was wholly mine

©Jemverse

Photo – Jempics

This field we walk

This field we walk
our saving grace
and for result
we love this place
Changing as
the year goes by
and different things
each time we spy
The joy of seeing
running paws
and flapping ears
to much applauds

And safety too
for here we three
are absolutely
people free
An hour of freedom
walking here
enough to give
us weekly cheer
So really what
more could we crave
when we have this
our joy to save

For it is that
in spades and more
a place we’ve both
come to adore
And Obi too
for this is his
a field to run in
doggy bliss
This field we walk
our saving grace
our hearts are here
within this place

©Jemverse

Photo – Houndie House Field, New Wharf Farm, Horsebridge Common, Sussex, UK – Jempics

Sun reaching

Caught the end of the sun
and the last golden ray
out over the houses
at the end of the day

It was like a lost treasure
as with arms wide to clasp
to it I reached out
though outside my grasp

Still, there will be more
with the treasure all mine
when it’s safe to be out there
on days when it’s fine

©Jemverse

Photo – Jempics

Stories from ‘The Dreaming Sites’

Emily Kame Kngwarreye
loved colour with a passion
with acrylic paint to canvas
like it was going out of fashion
and in eight years to an end of life
she captured there ‘the dreaming’
three thousand plus enlightenments
and each with hidden meaning

The expression of an elder
of the Anmatyerre people
it matters not our ignorance
and understanding feeble
For unless we were indigenous
we could not hope here to confide
so as it is these myriad paintings
to most of us their meanings hide

Yet still we are presented
with her legacy of style
enriched beyond mere words
which we could conjure in a while
for here is simple beauty
captured with sincerity
presented for enrichment
where we see what each will see

©Jemverse

[Emily Kame Kngwarreye (1910-1996) was introduced to acrylic paint in her late 70s. For the next eight years she painted over 3000 canvases, approximately one each day. As an elder of the indigenous Anmatyerre people in the Utopia region of central Australia, Kngwarreye was a custodian of the women’s ‘dreaming sites’. Each of her paintings captured an artistic expression of this role containing stories that only those who have been initiated through Anmatyerre ceremony can know or understand. The rest of us non-indigenous people can only imagine].

Photo – Emily Kame Kngwarreye painting ‘Earth’s Creation 1’ in the Utopia region of Central Australia in 1994

For when winter is done

A shaft of the sun
hit our north-facing garden
with a word just to say
for a beg of my pardon
A brief glimpse of promise
when the winter is over
and the sun is back out there
for days bathed in clover

Not long to wait now
just eight or nine weeks
as each day gets longer
and sunshine it tweaks
The promise of Springtime
in that shaft of sun
in our north-facing garden
for when winter is done

©Jemverse

Photo – Jempics

I know what I am

I know what I am
and I’m comfortable with it
Yes I have regrets
but they’ll not make me fidget
For I am just me
and you get what you get
so it’s probably best
to accept and not fret
And I hope when you find
what being me means
you’ll discover the truth
all’s not what it seems
For in us are hidden
some admirable things
which come to the fore
when life at us sings
And the truth of the wholesome
shines over all
when each of us sees
what life’s really for

©Jemverse

Photo – Jempics

When it’s safe

When it’s safe I will be out there
in the Sussex I hold dear
on the byways and the beach
where the air is ever clear

When it’s safe I will have music
live and loud as it should be
with songs that sing of life
which will then be Covid-free

When it’s safe I will be hugged
and will hug my loved ones too
replenishing that feeling
of the love I long to do

When it’s safe I will walk freely
in a better world I feel
which in these days of lockdown
has the time it needs to heal

When it’s safe I will have freedom
once again to simply be
unfettered by restraint when
I can once again be me

©Jemverse

Photo – Jempics

The beauty of a tree

i

Silhouetted in the sun
the tree in centre field
stands proud of the water
and looks out to the Weald

And out here east of Steyning
on this lovely winter day
I felt so glad to be alive
I shouted loud ‘hooray’!

Life is made for moments
like this, singular and free
especially when confronted by
the beauty of a tree

©Jemverse

Photo – Jempics

Sunshine Days

Sunshine days are wonderful
especially ones I’m in
which of course I mostly am
as witnessed by the grin

For it’s as wide as wide can be
as the face it’s in look high
to find the warming golden one
with deep contented sigh

Sunshine days are wonderful
and a tonic for my soul
They are the very essence
that serve to keep me whole

©Jemverse

Photo – Jempics