Embracing the Symphony of Words
Celebrating World Poetry Day
In a world often bustling with noise and chaos, there exists a timeless art form that transcends the boundaries of language and culture—poetry.
As we gather to celebrate World Poetry Day, we pay homage to the enchanting realm of verses, rhythms and emotions that have echoed through the corridors of human history.
On this day, let us immerse ourselves with some just some of the fantastic poetry we have here at Luath Press.
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As the Ice Melts
To Baba
As the ice melts in the Arctic zone
Himalayan peaks are not alone
Having their silence disturbed
By frequent avalanches hurled
Into the icy seas. The sea level rises steadily
Crashing down craggy slopes to cause
Flash floods that readily
Destroy life on widening plains
Where rivers swell from lightening rains
And as glaciers shrink through time
Upsetting rivers in their prime
The sea colonises the land
And rivers break their natural bond
Towns and crops are surprised
When submerged or deprived
As each year we release new fumes
Of eight billion tons over our homes
In heat-trapped carbon dioxide
And methane that now provides
An encasing warmth that chokes this earth
This swirling mass that gave us birth.
From Habitat by Bashabi Fraser
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The Moor’s Breath
For Boff Whalley, mountain runner, singer, songwriter
There is a certain smell, akin to petrichor,
A blend of peat perhaps and gritstone quartz,
You find only on heathery Pennine moors;
A flux, electric, an epiphany of sorts.
On days brimful of sun on hot, high summer hills,
You’ll find it there among the waystones and the raggle
Taggle packhorse trails and weavers’ paths that haggle
By walled wynds down to the valley-bottom mills.
Up here it fuses with the scents of heather and of gorse,
The bog cotton, the spice of struck flint sparks,
The mosses warming in the wet bog holes.
Here weavers, under bubbling moorland larks,
Would come to breathe sweet Liberty’s air
On Wakes Weeks, rinse their holiday souls
As the moor’s breath wrapped about them.
And it shouts its litany
Across the years to me –
Always, time after time,
I hear the epic ballad in my mind,
‘Pennine, Pennine, Pennine.’
From The Lonely Zoroastrian by Mike Harding.
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Lavender
We chose lavender,
to be carried with your coffin,
your favourite, native
to the Old World,
like the essence of you,
lavandula – holy to the Romans,
prized by the Greeks for its power
to lead the way to sleep;
dried stems, it had to be,
for your last journey, Spring
too early for new blooms,
the bouquet cradled
by my daughter in your wake
to the slow farewell of The Queen’s Dolour,
intense the scent as she passed our row,
each bud brushing the air –
invisible clouds drifting, rising
on every note,
lavender, lavandula,
farewell father, lavender,
lavender, Lavandula.
From Tomorrow’s Feast by Gerda Stevenson
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A Curlew Cries
Through cupped leaves,
sun boomerangs from cloud via
mirrors of slate and dyke.
The broom is like a blaze.
I’m walking with my daughter
and her hair, too, is fire.
It is Sunday in Galloway
so no buses, only miles of grass,
and a brae to cripple you.
We listen to the chorus of birds,
sheep and bees. I pick out the curlew:
it is the sound most like goodbye.
I wonder when a day like this,
so perfect in many verifiable ways,
first became an elegy for every other
day like this? A time of year when
suddenly the colour of light becomes
the same as sadness. She takes my hand,
briefly, she is not a child, and we walk
far into the cloister of the glen.
From Hapharzadly in the Starless Night by Hugh McMillan
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Suck Out the Juice
The pyramid of oranges
appealed to my gut
I wanted to savour
then devour
suck out the juices
extract the life
from these tangy spheres
let the nectar
dribble from my mouth
stain my robes
let the juice roam free
drop into infinity with
panache
and a soundless splash
cool satisfaction.
From Happily Drowning by Kokumo Rocks
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As we celebrate World Poetry Day, let us take a moment to revel in the beauty of words and the profound impact they have on our lives. This day invites you to explore the endless possibilities that language and imagination can offer.
So, pick up a poem, share your favorite verses with others, or perhaps even pen a few lines of your own.
Let us together revel in the magic of poetry, appreciating its ability to transcend time, culture, and circumstance, and to unite us all in the shared experience of being human.
