Of Stones and Waters

Learning to learn.

Asking for light

Paint, write and stretch the skin, command

Speaking for an education

Teach, show, shout, and see the world

In a past of dirt and troubles

In a drear time of beaten hopes

And darkness come home

Listen you

To the waves of sound that breach

A surface

In the music of your dreams

When you left this place

And the world opened

Its windows

Speak you

Of a book of sounds

Resounding

Echoed from the cliffs of your mind

A single voice multiplied

And the music of learning

A talisman of creativity

That you carry

And this love is like breathing

The complexity of statements

And lateral thoughts

Made to stay

And drawn

Into the house of your mind

Saying here be dragons

Mapped in the plural changes of your thought

That  come with each word

Observed and recorded

In light writing on the past vellum darkness

Spoken lives and drawn images

Done in silverpoint

On the travelled tattooed skin of your life

Amazed at the wonder

Of stars and codices

Of monster myth and learned legend

Released and realised

Into the light of your mind

perfer et obdura; dolor hic tibi proderit olim

 

Learn you

Of the stones and waters

That cause the shimmer

And streams

of your past personality

Of the ancient tragic possessions left behind

And the growth of small lightless pools

In the dripping caves

Called thinking

Walk around and

Dream you

Of what is to come and see

The crystals of your wishes

Fruit on fractured stone boughs

And coloured rock gardens

In the light of future

Creation.

 

Author's Note

perfer et obdura; dolor hic tibi proderit olim. Be patient and strong this pain may one day be useful to you. Ancient cartographers would place 'Here be Dragons', on unknown territories on maps. The photograph is mine and called Light Blown.

Reviews

[TL Boehm]

Listen you

To the waves of sound that breach

A surface

In the music of your dreams

When you left this place

And the world opened

Its windows

this is anthemic to me - a deep calls to deep statement - although I am not especially "Deep" I just found the words powerful.

[Ken Simm.]

Sorry for the delay in replying Tammy. I have been away taking photographs this last week. I'm glad you liked this thank you so much

[SyberRose]

The mind is a beautiful thing and poetry takes us anywhere we want to go...and all the answers are in nature if we pay attention...I never wrote poetry when i was young...never knew I was a poet and makes me wonder what else is there in me that I haven't discovered yet...Enjoyed Ken...Rose

[Ken Simm.]

Many thanks Rose. Much appreciated. And I agree about the mind.

[Leslie Philibert]

As one expects and gets from Ken. fine work. This I understand to be a poetoc narrative about teaching, saved and given hope through the healing power of nature and the salvation of creativity. As ever, great notes that I like to read, Ken is an expert for myths, magic and all that is not seen at first. Great.

[Ken Simm.]

Thank you Leslie. You have seen the purpose of this poem and put it in terms that I could not.

[jacob erin-cilberto]

i really like this ken...i wish there were more of this..being a teacher, it often gets discouraging when we see students who simply are fine with what little they know, and have no interest in exploring the world around them...they remain oblivious and refuse to look for new ground on which to tread with their minds.

nice write.

[Ken Simm.]

Thank you Jacob. I'm glad you could see what I meant as a fellow teacher.