No matter how hard and dark your days, if you can get yourself outside, go for a walk in the garden, the park, even better in the forest, then the arrival of spring will make things lighter.

Ode to Nordic spring

Each bulb has its moment,

Its white, yellow, purple time to bloom,

Fade, drop.

Make room for another solo.

Slow snow-melt sap flow.

For each week the swarm grows, size shows,

Sideshows from tree-buds,

Softly grey-fuzzed,

Swelling, smelling sweet and green sap

Rising sunwards,

Damp, silver days glow,

High blue skies call blackbirds

Chirp and cry.

Silver stains emerald,

Sprouts, shoots, gentle opening leaves,

Serrated, spotted, fuzzy, glossy green.  

Pinpointed white, yellow, purple,

Time to scurry and squeak.

Pine cones crack, feather-light seeds peep,

Tumble, catch the breeze.

Time to bloom on crowded forest floors,

Roots extend, cold retreats.

Gardens, parks, forests call back to warmth,

To life,

Pull back on the sun,

Hold it,

Not letting it go down.

Nyborg 2017

This weeks post, inspired by the 13th century Persian poet, Rumi. His poems amaze by feeling as relevant today as any contemporary poem.

Eternity

800 years ago, at 4 am

Someone wondering blank empty streets.

When asked, Why?

His reply:

If I knew, I’d have gone home hours ago.

And still we wonder, we search, we seek,

Stumble over glimpses and clues,

Comforted to know the search is eternal.

Nyborg 2017

This week’s poem, a painful one, like this whole long process that we are in the middle of. Chemotherapy – the hope we believe in, but also frightening and incomprehensible and the source of some suffering.

Chemotherapy

Waking from deepest depth to the screams of your adult son,

Eyes burning from the chemicals pumped into his veins.

To see his long, thin body, his smooth baby-bald head, bent in angles of pain,

Watering eyes, pink and light-scared, blood clots from his red-rimmed nose.

Watching bright colored chemicals drain from the bag

Into his veins, see his appetite shrink, weight falling from limbs,

Pills, vials, powders, needles, pale lips and lash-less eyes,

Gagging, groaning with aches, tied to pipes and long days on hospital wards.

Slow breaths of respite,

His naked head on the pillow,

His long pale body relaxed,

Slow-breathing in healing sleep.

Slow breaths of relief,

Trust in the treatment,

One drop at a time,

In the end he will be well again.

Odense 2017