Landermere space
 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