Story: 8. ) The Poplar & the Creek / from A BOOK IS LIKE A SACRED ISLE; A Rain of Booklight; A Book about Books

       The Poplar and the Creek

  We look for that which we know not. The intrinsic quest is always there it never leaves us. It is why we read books. But it is strange how we feel nearer to those unknown riches in the wilderness, in the outdoors, in the garden; or anywhere outside. And perhaps we haven’t fully realized the extent to which having an outdoor arbour in which to read can add to one’s life. I have found it quite amazing how the place where we read a book can add to the stretching our self-set limits and widen our lives.
   Down by the tidal creek at the bottom of the steep grassy hill that our house is built on is a huge poplar. It looks about a hundred feet high. It towers above the house. This grand denizen the valley below used to dominate the view from the back windows, but in recent years an oak has shot up and blocked our view of it. Sad, because I used to delight in the sight of its shivery leaves flittering and sparkling catching the sunshine in the breeze.     The poplar’s great roots line the bank on the opposite side of the creek and travel underneath its bed for quite a long way. At the base of its wide trunk is a large cavern-like hollow; and up in a crevice of it safe above the flood line is a square red tin. The delights of a dreamer are in this ‘treasure chest.’
   This lone, tall poplar is a favourite thinking-and-writing place for me; just as our book-hammock is a favourite resting place in the hottest part of the year. With many manuka trees on either side of it, the creek below at its feet and a grazing paddock behind, it makes a lovely hideaway spot for an hour.
   I lean against a convenient chair-shaped curve in the trunk. My legs stretched out near the edge of the bank just above the sparkling water. I let go the inevitable pressures of the day to accomplish ‘this that and the other,’ and listen to the singing of the creek as it flows close by me. From far side from upstream it comes running in tiny rapids, then swirling and curving it pours into the little pool below the steep bank where I sit. Slowly it is eating away at the bank. Flooding from heavy rains has taken some of the earth away and the great strong roots of the poplar are more exposed now.   I have taken the tin from its hiding place. It is beside me, open. It is a lot rustier now and the red is fading. But it is still sufficient for its work in providing sustenance; in words now rather than in confectionary; though sometimes there is something physically edible in it, like a bar of chocolate, etc.! But the main nourishment it offers is its books. Among them a notebook for river-writing. For this place is a catalyst for creativity, as well as a place for afternoon reading.
   The sound of running water combines with the sunshine and the warmth of the ground and up through the midst of me, like this great tree, living waters rise from my roots till they reach my mind, there to pour out a kind of liquid light, lambent and pellucid, that opens into life and thrills. These living waters teach me. They show me pictures of myself that are so true they change me and I see through the mists long formed by the obscuring thoughts of this world’s habitual thinking. A welcoming of truth, sharp and clear, takes the lead and I see through the veil something in the living world around me mirroring the living world within me and my life is enriched.   Two books are in the tin, as well as the notebook-diary and biro. They are on my lap. I keep a choice of two or three non-fiction books here because I never know what this one hour’s respite will dredge up in my waiting midst. I don’t always feel like writing. Often I read a bit of one book, and then lay it down to read the other. Occasionally, and quite like magic, I find a deeper catalytic sparking between the content of the two books. They ‘marry,’ in some curiously coincidental way, and I am amazed.
   I stop and look up. I gaze vacantly. And continuing in ‘the force that through the green fuse drives the flower’ (Dylan Thomas) I am strangely warmed. Lines of thought, like ethereal strands of gifted gold filter through in an inner sunshine and there’s a rising of joy in sudden insight and I grab my notebook and scribble a moment. Although what I write, usually has little to do with the subject matter of the two books I am reading, but it is like the trajectory of an inner object of light, on its sudden flight within another subject altogether, flying inside an ever increasing seeing-space within expressing a parallel in another sphere and in another dimension.
  These are the ‘thought-comets’ which ‘quicken’ life; that burst upon our mind and energize our spirit in our otherwise plain existence. They are our treasures, for a while. They feel amazing when we capture them. But afterwards they seem to lose their initial sparkle as they are no longer new: we have assimilated them into the body of our consciousness and they are now a functioning part of our wisdom and knowledge. But their coming was vitally important nothing else could have accomplished that particular ‘leap’ and renewal adding to our understanding. It was a unique moment in time and a spontaneous linking of one thing with another: the flash of truth bringing life.                                           What delight there is in taking time out to sit by a stream, to listen and think; a book in one's lap; a book which lives here, in a tree. And what delight there is, too, in throwing open the shutters of our windows and looking out and reading between the lines of the book of life.   
 
                               *

Rainbows Round this Ripening Field

Rainbows round this ripening field of favour and blessing

Coats shed and flung away

Glory circles where the pressing veil is passed and gone

For joy the field is turning turtle – and over and over

Studded stars around the sphere where angels were

Old leaves fell and fled away

Light shone where before the lesser led, and had deceived

For brave delight the world is flipped – over and over

Casks and canyons, flasks and treasured chests all opening

Rivers ran with crystal in-between

Shafts were piercing where the bent thing had had its day

 For love each heart surrendering – turning over and over

Flags and flyers, banners and tied threads unravelling 

Life dividing tares from wheat

Reapers sifting where rainbows circle ancient crowns

In thought doors opened – yet for joy – over and over! 

A Ring of Love

He has taken me with a snare, a ring of love

And broken me when I fell stumbling

He has taken me with a fish trap

A tangled web of passion

And peeled me when I surrendered

He has opened me with sunlight, and filled every gap

He has seen me with moonlight, and tipped me out

He has chosen me with a circlet, a ring-knife of swiftlight

And cut me in twain, torn down all my walls

He has chosen me in the furnace of affliction

And set me amongst the fiery stars

Not any hurt can harm me, nor any terror shake me

With their silent speech with the circle of their sound

He has married me to the Songs of Wales

Made of ever-living roads, I am

Yet, before ever they were, the rising wells

With the lucent shore with the amaranthine rocks

He has married me to the Tidal Sea

Made of mortal flesh, I am

Yet of Spirit overawed and overflowed

Tides of Everland

In the nearer stillness the gentle tide laps about the stones

Coming closer and closer

Yet you cannot tell

Unless you wait a long while and observe

So were the swirling waters which edged about my shores

All half unnoticed changings

Ever hinting of new things to discover

Curved things

Things which have borne the mark of a thousand tides 

All imperceptibly upon the edges of my heart

In the nearer kindness a gentle wind bends about the trees

Whispering clearer and clearer 

Yet you wouldn't know it

Unless with an inner ear you heard it

So were the whirling breezes which moved upon my heart 

All living callings

Ever speaking of the further things of love

Channeled things

Things by which opened lines were well etched

Moving entirely upon my spirit alone

From Everland the living tide comes searching me out

Finding answers in drawings

Though its pull you hardly felt

Unless in the secret place you fell

So was my heart borne upon to bear the sweetest light

All answers in unveilings

Each one a telling leaf of living truth

Hard shaped wonders

Taking me past the safe to the unknown  

And to havens of delight in even the tiniest thing

Tastings in the Tinglewoods

In the bearings of the beautiful

Lingerings of the light

In my tastings in the tinglewoods

Ripe rimmings fire red

In the rivers writing wreaths of things  

Circles of my soul

In those were further wings within

Soft spinnings burnt and bled            

In the playings of the plentiful

Weavings of the willow

In my graspings in the tangible

Swift singings glad and bold

Many cornered are my pathways

Calling the melodic

In those were fillings up inside

Fed runnings hid within

In the leavings letting go awhile

Spillings of my will

In my surgings in the sounds of things

Bright learnings rippling through

The Ragged Writings of Everland

A green leaf . . .

Hard ripped from a bent twig

Yet sent flying

A rose bud . . .

Cruel plucked from a thorn bush

And taken deeper

My soul untouched is safe . . .

But that is not what it was created for

                                                                   

The Saga of Amethyst Poetry / Part One: A Winter of Rejection

(This is the first of a ten part story . . .)

     A few years ago I submitted some of my poetry to a professional body of poets for assessment, critique; and, hopefully, some encouragement!  I was devastated by their response. My poems were deemed incomprehensible. Such complex conceptions could not be understood. Heartbroken, I stopped writing. But after weathering a long hard winter season (of about two years!) I began to write again. Yet it seemed that the format in which I could most satisfyingly communicate, and express what was burning inside me, was in my earlier formidable art of “incomprehensible poetry.”  I knew that I might have to face continuing rejection because of it; but I was willing. Being torn to shreds wasn't a bad thing! Even so, in a moment of desperation I began to call my work ragged writings instead of ‘poems,’ because I was left in tatters! (And, not being ‘poems,’ they might evade censure!) Then in an emerging of a tentative springtime, I wrote a definition and an explanation for my strange writing; and hoped it made some sense!  

Amethyst Poetry

     Sometimes, truth, too hard to be said in one way, will find another way to express itself; love never ceases to translate its fiery gems. Sometimes beauty, too piercing to be conceived in its raw state, will come to us clothed in complexity that we might be able to bear it; even appearing in a form we might naturally resist in order to protect itself from being too easily seen. The interior of love too wonderful by far to be perceived by any proud eye, its secrets were the portion of the pure in heart. As the ennobling fires of beauty and truth wait to be welcomed of the poor in spirit, so the shining amaranthine gems of Amethyst Poetry are poised here, their truth and beauty hidden, yet waiting to be discovered. All gifts of love to all who read...shine through the amaranthine rocks Amethyst Poetry . . .