Poems by Lyla Byrne
- Category: Poems
- Published on 16 May 2012
- Hits: 13919
Being here
My body doesn’t need to be on the moonI have the moon here, and many stars besidesthat jewel the night
My body doesn’t need to go zooming into space;and anyway I prefer the picturesand the storiesand the flights of imagination
I don’t need a carand the same for the aeroplanethe chain saw and motor mower
I don’t need a lot of things made from the Earth,And I don’t want much sent from far away
I don’t want a lot morethan we could source and make and growas friends in the town and countryside we know
I don’t want bloody diamondsor to fill my tank with bloody oil or to see the seas begin to boil and the skies turn red as blood permanently But I’d love to be here
Resurgence
You are like the sycamoreYour wings and scars spin down to the earth, becoming a thousand new trees
Life makes a healthy environment for life. Burning fossil fuels and living forestsis burning the candle at both ends.We are so busy destroying thecandle that we do not havetime to realise that itis what, in storieswould be calleda magic candle.It is like the cupthat is never empty,the rejuvenating grail.It is self renewing usingthe Earth and sunshine.If we used it wiselyit could endureforever
In the lime light*
Out westalong the path at the back of the house,up the hill into the red wood forestinto the lime light
a great domed enclosurea tribute to the perpendicularpeople talk about the cathedral of the pinesbut the redwoods are even more majestic
reaching through hundreds of light years the way the sun came down through the redwood leavesand got broken up like in a pointillist paintingand each a brilliant pointamongst deep green dapples of shadow so the glow within the fabulous boweris a perpetual lime green light
a soaring deep green disco balled superbower Sunny and cool at the same timegold and green afternoonstillness and peacewoodscented
* A poetic adaptation of a piece from Tom Wolfe's The Electric Cool Aid Acid Test (p. 57) in which the central character is Ken Kesey, who wrote One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest.
