Category Archives: Country

September 22, 2019 · 2:47 pm

Through Your Love – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

VJs Weekly Challenge – Resilience

IMG_0230 3

Photo: Billyacatting Hill, a tree growing in a rock fissure that is shallow and dry, in a low rainfall and very hot region.

 

“I’m not sure if resilience is ever achieved alone. Experience allows to learn from example. But if we have someone who loves us – I don’t mean who indulges us, but who loves us enough to be on our side – then it’s easier to grow resilience, to grow belief in self, to grow self-esteem. and it’s set-esteem that allows a person to stand up.”  Maya Angelou

 

Through Your Love

I drifted for a time
as wind drifts sand across desert
where nothing seems to change
the sandness of drifting as
amongst dry bones and ash,
but in the flurry
you captured my seed
and, in the womb of your fissure
you birthed in me a courage
founded in your acceptance,
and though the winds returned
I was grounded, rooted,
and best of all, bendable
through your love of which I am
ever suppled and strong
in the face of all who
squander me in dry sands.

©Paul Vincent Cannon

Paul, pvcann.com

54 Comments

Filed under challenge, Country, Free Verse, life, love, nature, poem, quote, relationship

Tagged as , , , , ,

September 17, 2019 · 2:50 pm

I wonder – prose by Paul Vincent Cannon

dVerse Poets – Prosery

IMG_0561.jpeg

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.

55 Comments

Filed under bush walking, challenge, Country, life, love, mindfulness, nature, prose

Tagged as , , , , ,

September 10, 2019 · 2:11 pm

Memorable – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

th.jpeg

Photo: en.wikipedia.org

“In order to see birds it is necessary to become part of the silence.”  Robert Lynd

Memorable

Today was many things,
as most days often are,
a collection of the senses
my soul so nurtured,
and even a few mundane things
helping the rest stand out,
but the most memorable of all,
so simple, yet moving,
was the arrival of a
New Holland honeyeater
who hid in the shrubs
near the birdbath,
Tentatively flitting in and
out to the water’s edge
watching us
taking all of us in
making sure it was safe
to dance in the water
the splashes were music
that filled the silence
we conspired to offer,
I wondered later if I had
seen myself.

©Paul Vincent Cannon

Paul, pvcann.com

41 Comments

Filed under Country, Free Verse, Gardening, nature, poem, quote

Tagged as , ,

September 5, 2019 · 2:44 pm

The Meat – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

Spontaneous – Word of the Day

IMG_0937.jpeg

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

29 Comments

Filed under art, bush walking, Country, Free Verse, life, mindfulness, poem, quote

Tagged as , , , ,

September 2, 2019 · 1:38 pm

All Gone Now – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

VJs Weekly Challenge – Recovery

IMG_0841.jpeg

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

36 Comments

Filed under bush walking, Country, Free Verse, history, life, nature, poem, Uncategorized

Tagged as , , , ,

August 31, 2019 · 2:53 pm

Storied – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

IMG_0243 2.JPG

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

24 Comments

Filed under bush walking, Country, Free Verse, life, mindfulness, nature, poem, quote

Tagged as , ,

August 30, 2019 · 4:15 pm

A Point of Grief – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

S4300258.jpg

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

40 Comments

Filed under bush walking, Country, Free Verse, grief, life, love, nature, poem, quote

Tagged as , , ,

August 24, 2019 · 1:56 pm

The Cuckoo-flower – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

5 Lines – Waiting

sheep-974107_640.jpg

Photo: provided by  Patricia’s Place

 

“The statesman shears the sheep, the politician skins them.”  Austin O’Malley

 

The Cuckoo-flower

She was more verbivore than herbivore
a cuckoo-flower who habited a simple meliorism
that the pasture was always better down the road
paradise in four-leafed clover she’s heard,
just awaiting the jumbuck special, ticket cloven.

©Paul Vincent Cannon

Paul, pvcann.com

20 Comments

Filed under challenge, Country, farming, Five Lines, Free Verse, life, poem, politics

Tagged as , , , , ,

August 17, 2019 · 3:06 pm

Sooner -a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

 

couple-937771_1280.jpg

Photo: pixabay.com

 

“Dancing is a perpendicular expression of a horizontal desire.”  George Bernard Shaw

Sooner

Perhaps it was the wine
or the small of your back
we left the terrace behind,
your eyes drank my soul
while we waltzed in the shed
our laughter turning to sigh
and sooner, not later,
the long summer grass
caressed our shuddering whole.

©Paul Vincent Cannon

Paul, pvcann.com

15 Comments

Filed under Country, dance, Farm, Free Verse, love, poem, Quadrille, quote, romance

Tagged as , , ,

August 15, 2019 · 12:20 pm

Solaced – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

IMG_2594.jpg

Photo: on the road to Jindalee, out bush among the mallee and mulga.

 

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

Solaced

In those long brumous days when
my chest is wearied
and sorrowed
I dream of Maarla and Ooldea,
longing for that silent word
offered without guile
to flesh and feathered alike,
and held in the company of
such wisdom born of stillness,
a scintilla of self-acceptance
there, in that moment,
I am solaced,
whole.

©Paul Vincent Cannon

 

Note: Maarla and Ooldea are types of Mallee. Mulga is Acacia.

22 Comments

Filed under bush walking, Country, Free Verse, life, mindfulness, nature, poem, quote

Tagged as , , , , , ,