Love, Beauty and Truth
The unfurling leaves, unwrapping themselves,
like gifts to the trees they reach from, in protected freedom,
into the grey abyss, the chemical void that is the sky,
with clouds formed from stripes, gasping and vomiting their load.
The tree that spouts suddenly, from a casually fallen seed,
its little trunk bending in the wind, within two seasons
of rain and sun and nothingness, enough for it
to grow strong and tall and overcoming the garden,
where once the lawn was mowed to an inch of its life.
The gentle curling of the snail’s shell, each one
a spiral from the spindle of the universe, connected
to me and all things. The soft snail that winds up inside,
the layers of browns and blacks and whites of its brittle,
beautiful shell on the outside, like wearing your heart
on your sleeve, its wet suction not quite enough
to stop it falling as I lift the lid it’s on. I pluck it carefully,
placing it upright amongst the dark, wet leaves, and
tiptoe away from its quiet fear, its safety intact this time.
The bright red fluttering of a butterfly, suddenly amongst the green,
its bold fragility opening and closing, like soft gates of truth.
The wind that blows a restless storm, licking my cheeks,
throwing up dust and smells and promises of another place,
its cries of madness faint upon its listless wings.
The birds that are carried on that wind, their wings wide,
their souls chirping too loudly for their little, feathery bodies,
their bright eyes alert and watching, their softness tucked away
amongst the withering leaves that fade and fall.
Love is beauty, whispers the wind, tugging at my soul,
as I comb the leaves and flowers with my fingers,
their quiet voluptuousness overwhelming me with energy,
life, growth, and persistence, opening and pushing and tangling –
even in the face of the machines that come relentlessly,
even when they’re torn away, thrashing, whimpering,
never giving up, coming back with a vengeance.
Beauty is truth, they say, and I nod, knowing, feeling,
screaming, sighing in the pain of that purity.
© Kathryn Rose Newey, 28/05/2022
Birth Mother
The blue sky, all around me, distant, faint.
Phantom stripes, their nets cast wide,
with periwinkle cobbles.
Neurotoxins idly trickling,
Like fingernails dragging down paint.
The summer flutters by, like a rash.
It shivers, sensing the vibrations of millions of
machines, chopping, grinding, exploding.
The green carpet is ripped up, rolled up,
and thrown in the trash.
Lone insects creep, their non-wings hesitant,
Searching for mates swallowed by the earth
generations ago.
The others, who may have eaten them,
Sunken, hollow, an expensive impediment.
The ocean weeps.
Waves crash and sigh, washing over
Coral scars, brittle like dry bones.
The last fish flops on the sand,
Hot, painful, gasping leaps.
We sip our poison, suck it in,
push it out.
Our cries go unheard in the darkened valleys,
Blown away by the dust and wind and
fire and smoke of the final sell-out.
Mother earth.
A rock, in space.
© Kathryn Rose Newey, 18-04-2021
earth-sore
white jagged cotton carelessly caught on knife-edge
ripped across the wide canvas sky,
metallic birds carrying us far away, but near –
there is nowhere to run.
down here, where the wind blows the waiting wheat
in waving symphonies,
just a few sheafs turn in discord,
to the rest, double-bent, twisted, spent,
so soothing to the eye, I want to run and roll in that inviting bed,
but so brittle and broken and dirty to my touch.
while I pick my way through
the fiendly weeds that force the sheafs apart,
and the pieces of humanity so carelessly tossed –
colour-faded wrappers crinkle and fly half-heartedly in the wind,
plastic traps itself around the reaching, calling branches,
where we won’t look.
birds struggle to be heard, their birdsong overwritten
by ripping, plastic, trash,
we hold so dear, for so short,
do we care?
© Kathryn Rose Newey, 21-10-2007
More original poetry: