you sit on a bench
beneath a leafy ash tree
wind sways the weathered swing
dusk is slowly falling...
suddenly on a branch – a drowsy pale owl
blinking with wise eyes
you are drowsing too...
just blow out the lantern
and sink into the fluffy quilt
passed down from your grandma
-------- From FiFo to LiLo-----
-----------------------------------
Rowan is a berry that it's extractions are used to
make sorbit acid a preservative used in baking.
Sorbus Aucuparia, also called mountain ash
is not related to the ash tree.it is one of the many
plants in the familiar Rosaceae family that also
contains roses, apples, and raspberries, and that
I have written about here so often.
Rowan trees are one of the most eye-catching tree
it's berries look like cherry tomatoes.While not deadly
poisonous, raw rowan berries contain parasorbic acid
and cyanogenic glycosides, which can cause significant
stomach upset, vomiting, diarrhea, and potential
kidney issues if eaten in large amounts, but cooking
(or freezing) converts these compounds to safe sorbic
acid, making them edible for jams, jellies
, and syrup.
Written by:
The Bread pro's
Yeast College
best sourdough, brioche
and tradational yeast recipes of Earth.
I'm well aware the streets aren't paved with gold
yet I still tread upon all forlorn roads,
not wise enough to see what I am told,
expecting much anew at each crossroads.
I long knew that grass is no more greener
yet I still walk across from parched to see,
wisdom will not still my inner dreamer,
for yonder may I find my own ash tree.
The monsters of my past gone from my head
yet each and every night before I sleep,
not wise enough to check beneath my bed,
so, back, in vivid dreams, they always creep.
Not wise enough to know, though child has gone,
there is no Zeus, and I am not Memnon.
Ash tree borer bugs
add one more plague to the list
when should we worry
An Ash tree tumbled down last winter,
it is only a wooden effigy now,
branched still,
limbs askew,
leftover as a lingering image
of one hour of violence.
It was a head-storm, it got into
the marrow of things,
wolf-winds tore at its canopy,
eclectic daggers struck its roots.
Fire felled - it smoked for hours,
bark scored and etched with ashes.
We did not see this,
the tempest shuttered our minds,
yet we heard
the rebounding crash,
and the longer shudder.
In the morning,
mother took her hatchet,
put on thick rubber boots,
and went to work
harvesting the easier reached kindling,
while I mourned the loss
of a climbing tree.
This year its bones are still there,
a corpse blocking a river towpath,
still reminding
those who pass that way,
of the suddenness of life.
Ebony braids, moon misplaced
Indigo inferno flames
Speckled iris, abstract face
Drowsy eyes, acrylic paint
Haunted ash tree, trailing bleak
Torrid patchwork women faint
Pigeons perch on scribbled lines
Chanting fire petals dance,
Abstruse art, bewildered mind
Five trees grow high above
Which time does not blow
The cold wind is empty
The sun’s heat is zilch
Their green gems never fall
One is an ash tree
One is an oak tree
One is a maple tree
Two are great birch trees
These are the five trees
Five foods grow high above
Those who taste the foods
Will not feel time’s wind
They will fly high above
To a sky blue city
One will be a dove
One will be a robin
One will be an eagle
Two will be good hawks
Five birds for five trees
Trees are fed by lakes
Of red water of life
The five lakes shine above
Not by the gold sun
But the son high above
The Ash has died, bare-branched
Throughout this summer.
Odin's gallows, Dreamin' Tree,
Died back like every other.
Though autumn leaves begin their fall
Bare Ash stands like a Christmas tree
Embraced, entwined, adorned
With greening from another.
Wisteria's bine has jumped the gap
Between the gardens at the back
To cover Ash tree to its top
To all the world alive, but not.
Half way up this dreamin' tree
A pigeon mounts his mate
A fourth or fifth time in this day
Though autumn's love is late
And well before the Spring.
Corvid's watching blue-winged Jay
Sits low upon his gallow branch,
Planning how to rob their nest
To scalp its precious fledgling squabs
Before they're raised as offspring.
These clatter doves with life long
Mates make glimpse of love's display
But all of God's creation groans
Awaiting when that final day
Finds freedom from frustration
With birth pangs of a better way
And longed for last redemption.
an acre of land
our very own smallholding
father scythes long grass
rows of potatoes
green runner beans, sweet carrots
mother bakes fresh bread
huge laundry baskets
filled with ripe red strawberries
small hands were stained red
a goat and two pigs
chickens and a cockerel
our morning alarm
perched upon a stool
I learn to do the milking
owl hoots in ash tree
Garden Poetry Contest
Sponsored by Dear Heart
06/10/20
Most elderly ladies
shine under a straw sunhat.
At the arboretum,
sitting under an Ash tree
(the same Ash
that she had sex under,
when she was old enough
to know better).
She leans back
on the scaled trunk
smiling at George,
who is not at all dead to her,
nor Harry, or Jim,
but at this moment
she is content to tuck them all
under her skirt
like a mother hen,
To smile
at the youngsters that pass-by
believing they know
anything about love.
When the nighttime dims
And the leaves glow gold
When the world seems magical to me
We’ll stare through the limbs
Of a century old,
Proud, defiant ash tree
You turn
The light catches your face
Your smile delves into my soul
You burn
Beauty shining at astounding pace
Possessing no true goal
We rush through the trees
Not a care in the world
And land abreast the wild birds
We laugh into the breeze
Daring the story be told
Such a tale will never be heard
Watch, don’t fall
Feel the salmon swim upstream
And see us step across rivers unseen
Look up to mountains tall
And lay down in this living dream
We’ll stare into the waters
Just as we did in those days
Don’t let the current take you
Two pale forest’s daughters
Never heeding time’s delays
As I burn too
We rush through the trees
Not a care in the world
And land abreast the wild birds
We laugh into the breeze
Daring the story be told
Such a tale will never be heard
eleven thoughts on the eleventh day.
January
white crunch blankets
bare bones clack
as wolfwinds wander.
sun
absentee landlord
mummified in clouds
sheds white lint.
snow angels
line our street
wearing little children feet.
now begins
time stilled days
stretching into distant Spring.
sound cuts the air
shattering
ice filled thought
children,
exotic birds
flit down our road
colour darting
over a blank page
bird song
welcome life
on muffled
windless days
2a.m.revelers
weekend nomads
roar through
my hibernation
sleepus interruptus
damn.
nature must be dreaming
lust filled moments
she moans and whimpers
roars and sighs
through January skies.
old ash tree
felled by gusts
of September
you are welcome
on my hearth.
woolen socks
for your itch
I thank you
on my January toes.
Roots that hold this tree
Let them dig deeper and true
But remain hidden
This ash tree stands at the center of the universe.
Its roots are drenched in blood
where hidden souls have fought for the throne
or maybe they are fighting still
though the land has been reclaimed.
This ash tree stands at the center of history
though we cannot tell how near the end we are
by looking at its striking limbs
as if lightning bolted from the earth,
struck the sky and petrified,
tawny and mazed.
A leaf drops like a shoe
to the foot of the tree,
but I refuse to walk away.
My heart is this tree’s seed.
Let it be buried with blood.
Its roots are within.
This war has been won
or I wouldn’t remain.
April 22, 2017
For 2019 Poetry Marathon Mile 17
For YGGDRASIL ME - Poetry Contest
Mourn for me tonight, Weeping Ash.
Break my heart and all my hopes crash.
Let your gnarled knuckles crack and creak;
Let your contorted mouth still shriek
Silently. Twisted in agonised peace
And calm, you could my soul release.
May the inveigling light shudder
In the gloom and silent thunder.
Cradle my weight in your warm heart.
Seduction or eternal hurt?
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