Unsayable Poems Poem by Sheena Blackhall

Baby Boomer Blues
My teeth fall out like Autumn apples
I have a dormouse need for sleep
My hair is greying, veins are gnarling
The smallest slope is Eiger steep
Where once I ran, I jumped, I grumbled
Now I shuffle, creak and creak


When the Unexpected Happens
My heart turns to ice. I freeze the moment
I like to unwrap the unexpected, later, like a spider

I prefer the unexpected to make an appointment
It is as welcome as a descending chainsaw

Death is the one exception
My funeral's pre-paid. my passport's stamped


Butterfly in Autumn
A closed book on a wall
Butterfly opens her paper thin wings
Calvinist cover becoming a golden bestiary


Not Climbing Beinn An-t-Sidhean
The legend says
To spend the summer solstice on its peak
You climb down either mad, or else a bard
Not climbing Beinn An-t-Sidhean I am both


Interrogating a Tree
What do you think of, here in the valley?
Storms an seasons, squirrels, constant rain
Do you grow weary, tethered and rooted
Acceptance brings wisdom. No address. No name

How do you endure it, alone through the decades?
Wind strokes my branches. Sunlight makes me shine
Each moment's different - a leaf fall or a shimmer
How could I despise this little place that's mine


Meditation no 7
Splitting the cloud, I raise my eyes to stare
At sunlight pouring down its golden gift
Here silence is as comforting as prayer
Here thoughts dissolve and worries start to lift

Speed is best suited to impulsive youth
Emotions thunder forward like a train
With time comes patience, the pursuit of truth
The yin and yang of pleasure split with pain

Beyond the shrine room a sleek blackbird calls
Torn twigs embody suffering and loss
But meditation buffers sudden squalls
And slowly thoughts slip down like sinking dross

Here's Autumn….the white turning of the hare
When field and sky and wood are stripped buff bare