Author: SOULstice

In this dappled mountain clearing
Razor light captures the tiniest joys.

A flicker of leaf
floats to the forest floor.
Insect wings sparkle pink, then blue,
then disappear in flight once more.

Magic in the morning.

Maybe half-light brings its blessings,
hard baked truths no more to teach,
but here in filtered shafts of sunlight,
moments glisten into speech.

Sharonne Price 2017

On Visiting the Cathedral at Wells (UK)

They laid my flesh under granded stone
And carved my name with praise,
An epithet to do me proud.
And catch the tourist gaze.

The feet of pilgrims since have trod
four hundred years or more.
I’ve harkened to both heart and voice
in songs of rich and poor.

Now children bring their pencils
And scrub to find my name,
But the soles of a thousand penitents
Have dulled and dented fame.

Thanks that in this place of song
The stone is never cold,
It tells the tales of journeys long
And human hurt consoled.

Sharonne Price

Adelaide

The old grandmother tree
spreads herself at the Oval gate.
Generations of nests
cradle in her spreading arms.
She rocks and sways,
then dips
to the chimes of bells
and brisk cool gully breezes.

Old Adelaide she is, in place and posture.
Benevolent matriarch, guest of honour.

In silent commentary
she smiles upon her noisy brood.
She’ll indulge their excitements
at parties, fetes and festivals.
But higher praise she still reserves
for the strain into brighter lights.

She knows the prodigals all come home
with fortunes lost and made,
to wrestle with familiar odds
and take refuge in her shade.