Landermere space

Poetry for meditation and contemplation

Monica Ditmas

2 of her poems:

One Bird Flying

I managed to be taken in my wheelchair to the memorial service for my dearest lifelong friend Leslie in the village where we both used to live and before she died she had asked that this poem of mine should be read. I have never had any idea where the last three lines of this poem emerged from and have not known what they meant. A friend read it for me and suddenly in this setting the meaning became clear, not only for me but for all present. It describes the flight of the soul as it leaves this world for the next, a journey we all have to take alone.

Slowly, distantly, the trees

waken to April sun.

Above them, drifting clouds

dispense alternate streams

of light and shadow,

Flowing across the green

of spring foliage, gilding

and darkening, gilding

with gold-leaf, darkening

with green-black caverns.

Silently, the clouds

traverse the endless sky

in shifting patterns.

No other movement is there

until slowly,

across the vast spaces

one tiny shape moves, silhouetted,

alone in the universe.

One bird flying.

O my soul!

One small bird flying.

Her soul took this journey July 14th 2019

The Telescope

This poem was written on Easter Day and simply gives the Easter Message – all is well.

In grey dawns, I hold it.

In grey noontides, again

I take this undesired,

persistent telescope
to scan the deep horizons

of my own being. Where

are the stars, or maybe,

just maybe, even suns.

But dark, shrouding clouds

close down on meaner images,

drab moorlands, muddied fields,

confused contours, or at best
an ordinariness of landscape,

unilluminated, altogether
an apology for mis-spent life.

But suddenly, gently, quietly,
the telescope is removed
from my faltering hands.

Someone has taken it from me,

turned it, turned it around.
Now from some unknown source

like sunrise from the east
a slanting light appears,
dimly at first, a copper glow,

the stronger, richer, warmer,

spreading like peaceful fire,
a golden alchemy
that turns the mud to star dust.

None of this is my doing,

So whose hands hold it now,

this upturned telescope?
I do not know, yet know.
I also know that I
can lie down safely now,

and sleep in joy and peace.

Posted with kind permission
from her book of poetry

'One Bird Flying'

published by Anima Poetry Press

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