Category Archives: bush walking

December 6, 2019 · 3:12 pm

Think On This – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

dVerse Poets – Meeting the Bar – O, Apostrophe

Amaya at dVerse has invited us to consider the creative idea of the apostrophe other than its technical use, rather as its poetic function in creating a change in the poem where the object speaks or is spoken to directly.

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Photo: granite outcrop, Nungarin

 

“No matter how sophisticated you may be, a large granite mountain cannot be denied – it speaks in silence to the very core of your being.”  Ansel Adams

Think On This

In the stillness was the hardness,
a resistance I knew well
of footfall on granite,
what song shall you sing me
I threw, and it rang sharp,
came back the posit,
think on this tenderfoot,
softness cannot abide without
firm boundary,
compassion lies in
strength within,
O that I might be a rock
of such an age of wisdom.

©Paul Vincent Cannon

Paul, pvcann.com

 

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November 29, 2019 · 3:25 pm

The Herald Of Summer – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

dVerse Poets – Open Link Night

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Photo: Billyacatting Reserve

 

“Leaves are verbs that conjugate the seasons.” Gretel Erlich

 

The Herald Of Summer

There’s a corner of the garden,
a remnant of native bush
that I love to wander,
especially now, as the air is warmer,
but before I even feel that
I know it by the crunch and crackle
of those hardy leaves,
the daily autumnal, the
herald of summer,
and the smell,
yes the smell of eucalypts
in this dry avenue
is to be inhaled as fine whiskey,
and, in the stillness
the quiet is a rarefied sharpness
that carries its own energy
pierced only by cicadas and magpies,
and I float in my senses
past bees and dragonflies
as friends.

©Paul Vincent Cannon

Paul, pvcann.com

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November 10, 2019 · 4:33 pm

Russet Royal Carpet – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

RDP Sunday – Comprise

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Photo: found on pinterest.com

 

“And into the forest I go, to lose my mind and find my soul.”  John Muir

Russet Royal Carpet

The herald breezes in and
stirs the russet royal carpet
that crackles under bare foot
like sheaves of crumpled cellophane
through which you follow your
improvised lyrical body,
an atonement for the daily grind
in which only the tall sentinels see
your transparent heart interpreting
the rhythms of life comprised of
your inner compass,
a spirit of music which guides you
to vulnerability and joy,
a dance of pure, liberated soul.

©Paul Vincent Cannon

Paul, pvcann.com

 

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October 22, 2019 · 2:26 pm

Wrestling Visions – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

dVerse Poets – Quadrille

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Photo: Lake Ballard shore line.

“We are in the mountains and they are in us, kindling enthusiasm, making every nerve quiver, filling every pore and cell of us ….”  John Muir

Wrestling Visions

Surely you know a spider’s web
all sheen of gossamer neatly strung
finely tuned to capture,
just like the web
that its my heart
which captures breathless
beauty that escapes words,
quivering with the slightest tremor
of the subtlest emotions,
my body wrestling visions.

©Paul Vincent Cannon

Paul, pvcann.com

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October 3, 2019 · 1:47 pm

Pelicans Align – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

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Photo: Hardy Inlet, Blackwood River, three pelicans in the shallows.

 

 

“Many pelicans fish by swimming in cooperative groups …”  National Geographic

Pelicans Align

Just a grey October day where
the river reflects its sky so well,
a flash of white dazzles on the
far eastern shoreline
a painter’s bold smudge,
the air murmurs but doesn’t move,
gulls and terns circle and pass,
suddenly the daub of paint moves
and catches my eye,
five birds take to the sky
thermal surfers wheeling and circling,
soon five more, and another,
till forty pelicans align in a
grace that belies their size
and somehow the world seems
to be a better place.

©Paul Vincent Cannon

Paul, pvcann.com

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September 17, 2019 · 2:50 pm

I wonder – prose by Paul Vincent Cannon

dVerse Poets – Prosery

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Photo: the majestic Karri trees at Boranup.

The dVerse Prosery is hosted this week by Merril and the line to use is “These memories were left here with the trees.” from ‘How to Write a Poem in a Time of War.” by Jo Harjo. Using that line create a piece of prose of 144 words.

 

I Wonder

I wonder what happened here before I am. This one tree might speak of so much. But what might a forest speak? A grove of knowledge no cloud could carry, a living intelligence that pales Plato, or the vast paucity of philosophy. Each bole a reliquary of life’s passage, each annual ring a repository of a truth greater that the sum of what we call knowledge. O to be grounded in the strength of your heartwood and risk the sky, or to shelter in your caress and know love, to know what you know, to sup from your fount. Evanescent, history passes, held by your compassionate gaze. Of owls and wars, lovers and seasons, for each an ossuary caringly covered by your blankets and, until the one who knows as you know, that only love uncovers, these memories were left here with the trees.

©Paul Vincent Cannon

Paul, pvcann.com.

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September 5, 2019 · 2:44 pm

The Meat – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

Spontaneous – Word of the Day

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Photo: One segment of the Northcliffe Art Walk, sculptures in the bush, quite striking when you get such colour randomly appearing. We went on a whim.

 

“Why not seize the pleasure at once? How often is happiness destroyed by preparation, foolish preparation.!”  Jane Austen, Emma.

The Meat

All the grids of the world
only ever speak of disorganisation,
cages occasion freedom
while structure poses random,
so stand where you will
where you feel drawn,
the choice is yours,
but mark my words,
of segue, impulse and whim,
well, that’s where the meat is.

©Paul Vincent Cannon

Paul, pvcann.com

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September 2, 2019 · 1:38 pm

All Gone Now – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

VJs Weekly Challenge – Recovery

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Photo: Niagara Dam near Kookynie, an oasis in a dry land. Kookynie once boasted a permanent population of 3,500 people at the height of the gold rush, and double that with transients coming and going. From 1895 to 1910 it was a bustling town, when the first world war began (1914), and then later when the gold price dropped (1923), the population declined, and from the 1960s it completely diminished, and today it is listed as a ghost town with ten people.

 

“Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts …”  Rachel Carson ‘Silent Spring’

 

All Gone Now

Swarms covered this fragile land
as gold fevered a crowd,
and in the middle of nowhere
somewhere sprang up
from zero to thousands,
a mayor with parades,
schools and shops,
all gone now ‘cept the dust,
the train now a ghost,
the crowd has thinned,
just a couple remain
and of course, as always,
the pub with a tourist or two,
those halcyon days
will never return
though the land recovers itself.

©Paul Vincent Cannon

Paul, pvcann.com

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August 31, 2019 · 2:53 pm

Storied – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

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Photo: A granite rock north of Bonnie Rock.

“It seemed that out of battle I escaped down some profound dull tunnel, long since scooped through granites which titanic wars had groined.”  Wilfred Owen (‘Strange Meeting’ 1918)

 

Storied

I walked your soul
and touched your heart
which beat a thousand beats
from before time,
august you rose from the earth
weathered you remain
pocked and pitted,
I beheld your beauty spots
and wizened skin
with captured fragments
of storied lives
like passing clouds,
and marvelled at your solid form,
grounded, yet ever changing
from within.

©Paul Vincent Cannon

Paul, pvcann.com

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August 30, 2019 · 4:15 pm

A Point of Grief – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

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Photo: Lake Brown looking west to the setting sun.

“Filthy water cannot be washed.”   African Proverb

 

A Point Of Grief

There’s majesty in this ancient death,
just to walk the barren shore and
take in the necrosis of dead trees
and pinkish water,
nothing lives here
except the salt, of course,
a living death
that burns to the touch,
even the wind moves
in eerie reverence
across its tortured surface,
a millennia of dying
offering a point of grief
to all who long for something more
in this tortured world
of love and loss.

©Paul Vincent Cannon

Paul, pvcann.com

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