Poem hunters – planting seeds at Riverhill Himalayan Gardens

What a great day we had a Riverhill on Saturday. 40 writers attended the event and were so inspired by the gardens we ended the day with 22 poets reading their work. Over the next few days I’d like to post up a selection of the poems as well as these amazing photographs courtesy of Caroline Auckland. What a stroke of luck she came to words@riverhill!

 

Riverhill Himalayan Gardens at the End of the World (after Yeats)

I’m up and off and on my way to River-hill,
and I could stay there, when the world burns,
in a small bunker, like a badger’s set,
hidden by foxgloves, forget-me-nots and ferns.

It is dhyana, said the Himalayan trees,
the sanskrit word for peace echoes as the world ends,
while I hide in rhododendrons, covered by bees
and play with imaginary friends.

I’m going to go now at noon and dusk
to prepare my hut for the apocalypse,
and I will listen to the planes and cars
that will fall silent at my final trip.

Jess Mookerjee
 

Hunting for the Giants

These were gunless hunters
who sought not to kill
but to create

it was not a victimless crime
as they themselves
were often the victims

their quarry wasn’t dangerous
but the habitat was −
long hours trekking

high into the humid hills
everything an unknown enemy
thriving on adrenalin

and thoughts of bringing
home a giant hidden
in a tiny seed.

Mary Anne Smith

 

 

Your Sun at Riverhill

Somehow you turn away from me
put yourself the other side
of this thought gate, fastened tight
with your wooden refusal.

I wander in the rhododendron waves
mood magnified by sun’s absence
as it breaks through I squint to see
someone come near when today is all
shadows, dark images you threw,
discards from your pure, white self
that show, somehow, I have come
between you and your sun.

I didn’t mean to.

Jacquie Wyatt