James Farrelly

 

Winter’s Song

 

I am  . . . stillness . . . hidden in the green god, 

blended in a medley of falling leaves. 

Each drifting leaf marks the Sun-span of its striving;

Aurora’s sighs quaver in sea-tones only a goddess may sing. 

Within, a child looks up from a candled window,

enchanted by the celestial night for the first time. 

Without, Old Hiem breathes out his whitest atomies–

the softcrisp icy ciphers of first falling snow, 

all leaf-lined and frost-tangled in the tumbledown. 

 

I am.

 

“Winter’s Song,” from Sun Wind Silversea

©2022 James Farrelly
All rights reserved.

 

 

“Psyche”

 

Here—every night

with all these stars that clothe the sky.

Our wanting is all;

a sidereal turning, 

consummate, a forgetful counting of every pleasure;

liquid weft and warp, a

slipping into skin to make our bodies 

spun sparks, waking heartwild 

the woven waves of liquid fire,

feeding on what our silvered selves consume. . . 

‘Til our eyes,

close over in light. . .

and we come into being again,

all water and stars . . . 

 

Forgetting and remembering 

even in waiting, in the long absence,  

when memory unclothes separation; 

and time coalesces its embers; warming 

the thralls of letting go, sea-sweet in goddessness,

without shame or fear or worry— 

a love tremulous in helpful breaths— 

a yesness, raining in shivers, 

‘round our silvered cloud, 

sighing out, letting in the light and heat

of our turning . . . opening

all-blossomful suns. 

 

“Psyche,” ©2022 James Farrelly, All rights reserved.

“All Water and Stars”

…Whenever we find a clearing, let us rest there.

Together we will build a fire and make a home 

in the forgiveness of grass–a home

made new through remembering 

ancient music–sustained in its sky

the way moon pearls through broken shadows 

to summon fireflies;

their wings flitting, 

freeing silence to consecrate our whispered song.  

 

And when morning dreams us to open our eyes 

we see the same light there encircled, 

shining in and above the woodland round.

Our first night’s woven memories of frenzied stars 

will make lamps in the dewy grass 

and plead our book of love be read again…

(February 14, 2022)
 

“All Water and Stars,” © 2022 by James Farrelly,

All rights reserved.