nature

GOOD DAY

/ deuxiemepeau / 4 Comments

 

They call it Good Friday, Mum initiates
the conversation early for fish and chips
and somewhere, not far from subconscious,
I near a church and its pressure leaning in
on her sudden sway for the taste of something
fishy, less meaty, today, on this Good Friday
where tales tell of salt and vinegar and the smell
of soft flesh drying out in the heat of a distant
desert. Later, I flick through photographs-
some West Coast sass, where Mormons saw palms
stretched out in prayer, there, where the cactus
have hard skins and hollow centres to hold
the tears of this dying desert where succulents
send signals to the stars while Joshua, tired
of being seen solely as salvation, has blown
a balloon into the hot air to catch for himself
a better view of how the river lies, here,
where every day is a good day or a bad day
or both or neither and no one talks about
what to eat, only that food is a gift and death
makes way for life and nature can have
soft centres to harbour hope while its shell
dries in the heat of an endless summer
and holds beauty in the pierce of every pine
that stabs its skin during the unlimited
possibilities of goodness in every single day.

 

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

 

BUDS OF INVINCIBILITY

/ deuxiemepeau / 2 Comments

 

Notes multiply under an orange blossom moon.

We pour music into cups and songs sprout
from rose trees that have yet to bend towards the bud
while daisies turn noisy in the far field as the grass
orchestrates the dawn’s chorus and petals tremble
in the wake of all that once shivered in the stillness.

Clouds melt like warm snow beneath our imagination.

We wear it like candy and when we eat it we grow giddy
and gravity gives way to the illusion that we too
can rise from this heavy earth, drowning dust blazing
a distance into our trail as we pat the sun with our smiles
and that orange moon melts into a melody we can taste
on our tongues while our weary eyes close, for a while,
in a slumber the angles have created to cradle our chaos.

Notes multiply in back gardens where invincible comes
to conquer all that needs distance and all that is disease.

 

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

 

Inspired by a Twitter Poetry Prompt

FINDING OUR WAY

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I woke early, attention tethered to the bird call
as they build their nests within the walls
we once lit fires between. Regardless of season
we must all find ways to shelter and survive.

I ran early, out into the open morning where air
was still yawning and I thought about sleep
and what it takes to catch a dream at the far end
of the wood when you aren’t sure of the way back.

I climbed the slow hill, with flattened breath
and caught two moons under the still grey light
kindly carved into the edges of memory
in this growing garden we water with tears.

I came early, to ponder position by tall towers
no longer watchful with feet that haven’t settled
while the sun, I cannot see, casts its light
onto two white moons above a thousand eyes

no longing seeing.

I woke early and still came up upon the moon.

 

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

ALWAYS THE LEAF

/ deuxiemepeau / 4 Comments

 

I remember you, growing older,
how your skin adapted- as if it had grown in the garden
on the branch of the rhododendron.

Shiny it was, with lines that time had tempered into it,
ever so carefully, like you tempered peace into our panic,
stillness into our hast, serenity into our cacophony.

The leaf, always that single leaf of our lives, never wanting
to be the blush of the flower, just the leaf- always under, in support.

New leaves, like weathered skin, sprout slowly from aging bark,
a soft beauty between the bramble and briar,
between being the wife, the mother and the grandmother.

Today, I tended the garden- mum’s garden now,
your garden once when we were but shoots and you- the whole tree,

and I remembered you

and the slow shuffle of slippered feet and those grand cardigans
that wrapped their comfort across the curve of your back,
that bowed like a branch to reach us all the better.

I recalled your skin that had grown a line for each of us,
a connection to catch hold of, to come back to, those kids we once were
with spotless skins life had yet to mark, always eager to explore

while knowing how to find our way back
and the one who would be waiting on her stool, by the widow,
in the kitchen, in the sunlight, pealing and baking, baking and pealing
to the tune of the radio and the whirl of the twin tub

waiting for one of us to find our way home.

I remember you, as you grew older, today and every other day.

 

All words by Damien B. Donnelly

 

Today is my Grandmother’s 12th anniversary. She now grows in the garden of the hearts of her family.  

dublin3

A BLACK CANVAS

/ deuxiemepeau / 2 Comments

 

Mum tells of no moon tonight, as if it’s been lost,
as if the darkness will never rise and the sun will weep
at the thought of never catching another break.

We cut an apple tree in the back shadow of the front garden
yesterday but left the root, to remind it, perhaps, of how to return.
Should I have done the same for the moon? Left a calling card
of flagrant fondness for its fine form- a white blemish
on the blank canvas of that all-consuming blackness.

I never liked starting out on white, far too much choice
of where to place the blemish of the first brushstroke
but black… black is where you paint a Pollock.

I refuse to admit we’ve seen the last of the heaven’s eye-
Eden didn’t forsake us- it was the kids who grew bored of it.

The ground trembles underfoot, even here, beneath this house,
the roots are rummaging below the earth and their bloom
will be a full moon that some of us will not be able to see
and the rest will be unable to correctly comprehend it.

 

All words and photographs by Damien B Donnelly

THE PAYMENT

/ deuxiemepeau / 1 Comment

 

Concrete
is no compliment to the current.
Curls come and crash without care,
you cannot keep an ocean contained
in a single cup.
‘I hurl this wave
with the weight of a thousand stones’ she sighs
and slips back out as clouds come to commend.

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

 

Written as part of the Cobh Writers and Readers #PoetryPrompt featured on Twitter. Do drop by and join in the creative distraction. @CobhWR

 

QUACK

/ deuxiemepeau / 7 Comments

 

Solitude will guard gentle breath
as I slip from darkened day to dream,
even if the daffodil, now bright upon the bank,
comes despite concern.
I smile as the memory of this kindhearted bloom
unfolds within the shadows of this stilled room,
here, where corners ponder the importance of a cell.
In the distance, I hear a duck quack
as I return to the credit of comfort the pillow provides
and close my eyes to the sounds of madness.

 

Written as part of the Cobh Writers and Readers #PoetryPrompt featured on Twitter. Do drop by and join in the creative distraction. @CobhWR

BOOKENDS; WHEN THE BREATH COMES AFTER THE BREAK

/ deuxiemepeau / 7 Comments

   

The lilt of the lavender that lingered for days,
long after, by the leaning, before the louvre,

the sweet consolation of candy floss cologne
that stayed on the pillow, after you had parted.

It is sometimes that simple; a scent to sail you back to me

as if I never left the garden,

as if I never left the comfort of your caress

though when it was there I could barely catch a breath.

   

All words and photographs by Damien B Donnelly. 

This month is looking back at the scent that will stay with me before I leave Paris. The courtyard of the Louvre was filled with a lavender covered tent for a Dior Fashion show during the Paris fashion week a few years ago.