Vincent Van Gogh ~ Study of a Tree
A few leaves
still fall
in the late
November sun
spilling
from the cirrus wings
of morning
like old ghosts
awakened,
summoned from the darkness
and firelight,
or from the moon
whose gentle beam
shines down on us
between the twilights
and silver dawn.
A lullaby of solitude
is carried in the cry
of curlew and kittiwake,
and reaches down
among the tree roots
where once I slept
and dreamt of this.
Copyright 2012 Louise Hastings
I wish these dreams were solid.
The answers would lie before me,
easy questions,
easy as counting matchsticks
in the dark. Setting them ablaze
would warm me, the orange flicker
cupped gently in my hands.
I can feel them try, tilting and unstable,
untouchable between this uncertainty
and real. They do not come from logic
but from another place, carved
out of starlight, sparkling and blue.
Eventually they will fade into nothing.
The left-brained wolf dismisses them,
fears the solitude, the emptiness in the wind.
Copyright 2012 Louise Hastings
Winter Witch by Haunting Visions at Deviant Art
In the mornings in her tidy, rumpled room
she strips the bed of feathered pillows,
creates a deep, embracing warmth.
Bereft of sorrow, thought or wealth
she drifts through life lost within a sky-lit room
with linen curtains, purple painted walls.
I think of her alone,
try to guess the way she sleeps,
eyes closed, curled up in a foetal ball,
watch her dream and twist and turn.
One day I hope she’ll see,
flit among the roses,
feel each petal with her fingers,
languid, slow. She prays each night -
“Your kingdom comes. Your will be done“
- this I know, but do the angels sing?
I see them as she sits and bleeds,
drip,
drip,
drip
until the winter witch has come.
© 2012 Louise Hastings
The Isles of Shoals 1912 Childe Hassam
Who is she
this woman of silk
outlined among the rocks?
She sits perched
like a muffled silhouette
some distance off
in this silent, deserted spot
where the sun throws its fire
on the water and copper
licks at the shore.
The tide will stir and rise
in endless ebbs and flows,
the azure of the sky
the roof of her world
when she dreams,
absorbed, fragile as china cups.
© 2012 Louise Hastings
I’d wanted to fly
right out of my life,
apprehend dawn
alone in the wind,
the stars and the sun -
with a belly full
of dammed up things,
life before rain,
before silence and space,
in waters still cold
at this time of day -
flowing fresh,
running with a twist,
steady and pouring away
like the eggshells I broke
playing with tempera
and fistfuls of memories
curled up in the womb.
Tick Tock
says the clock,
the spokes of the wheel
slow turning in sequence,
in glistening drops.
They cycle to the ground
where everything turns,
tangled and torn
in a summer of skies.
© 2012 Louise Hastings
Written for Visual Dare #15 with Angela Goff
Also linking to dVersepoets Open Link Night 
