What the Light Tells

I have been enjoying participation in the Poetry Masterclass, What the Light Tells, with acclaimed teacher and poet Mark Tredinnick during my recovery time. It’s been an inspiration. Each week we have learnt a few different forms and I have stretched my brain around Iambic Pentameters, beats and rhyming words—sonnets, haiku, tanka, sappho’s, englyn’s just to name a few.

This was a tanka that I wrote about the Masterclass, What the Light Tells.  (Tanka – 3 lines of 15 syllables per line)

To Be (a Poet) or Not to Be

Do not simply follow the footsteps
of the Ancients; seek what they sought.
—Matsuo Basho

I sought What the Light Tells —not knowing what I’d find on the page.

I’ve crossed the line; I can’t turn back. It’s midnight now, the boobook

Laughs. Moon rise in the eastern sky.   Light on the path speaks in tongues.

And more…the following is an Ode to a Friend conceived late one night after I had given up on getting a flow with the iambic mode. (daDa daDa daDa….) I had to get up out of bed and write this one down,

This is in response to my post about the friend who helped me get clear on what my needs were around starting work this month!

 

Ode to a Friend

I love the friend

Who calls me in

To check me out

To pull me up

And sit me down.

Who reads my mail

And stops

To call

And says,

What were

you thinking?

She speaks her love,

With no demand

Yet questions

What I wanted.

We laugh, we cry,

We wander on

To all that guides

Our way.

For getting lost

And getting found.

We pray and sit,

We move and dance.

We lie outside

Upon the earth

And disappear

Into the Rest.

For here

We listen,

To the goats

And to

The trees

Above.

For care,

For peace,

For love.

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Gai
Gai
2 years ago

What a lovely response to a lovely friend. Your poems are beautiful, Wendy.

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