Tag: ambrosial hours

In the Darkness before Dawn

~ sojourningsmith ~ Leave a comment

I was born at this dark time of the year. I was a Samhain baby, born on All Souls Day or the Day of the Dead. For a multitude of reasons – my fair skin burns easily and is prone to heat rash, allergies, biting insects who find me oh so tasty – I do not love the summer. Perversely, now at the darkest time of year I have found myself wakeful at 4am. And I do not think this is necessarily linked to anxiety. This has happened in other years. Maybe because I was born at this time of year my body perks up. The sun is low, the temperatures cool, insects have flown away and pollen is dormant.

So it has been in this past week that I have been awake and writing before 5am on a few occasions. Some call this the amrit vela, those ‘ambrosial hours’ before dawn that seem the natural habitat of prayer, meditation, and creative endeavour. I am well aware what today is in the motherland. So first I prayed – for love to cast out fear. Then I pulled out the notebook and my fountain pen and wrote, after a false start, this:

Love

Love makes you brave. 
Waking up at the darkest hour
on this cold November morning
I contemplate the ways love 
made me. 
The rebukes and cautions
made in the hope of keeping me safe.
The brush of a lover's lips where
bloomed faith.
Just as arms shielded me so
mine grew strong enough.
Love and I could belong.
Not  completely safe, but secure
in faith and the hope
and the knowledge
dawn always follows
the darkest hours.
That when love is brave
it will never ever betray.

Copyright © Bee Smith 2020. All rights reserved.

Featured image Photo by Paigie Page on Unsplash

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Between Seasons

~ sojourningsmith ~ Leave a comment

There is definitely a nip. The air has gone crisp. I needed to put on a pair of socks for my walk. I am shaking out sweaters and greet them as old friends. Yes! Autumn in on its way. September is one of my favourite months – along with May. They are Goldilocks months. Not too hot. Not too cold. Just right. Cool enough for porridge for breakfast. Warm enough that the rain doesn’t chill your marrow when you get drenched during a walk. It’s a season of rainbows and intense shots of light and then a lowering dark. It is a season to believe in miracles. The Poetry Daily began in this wonderful month and it will conclude the cycle of 365 days of a poem a day in September.

The nights are drawing in.There is a greater chance that I may wake in the amrit vela, the ambrosial hour, when the day is not yet born. It is a very special time, when you can feel the pulse of the earth. And while I was up, our internet had been knocked out, but was swiftly restored by our great local, rural internet provider Groupnet.


  Between Seasons
 
 It’s not full on
 like midsummer's  bright
 clap at the crack of dawn.
 No. It’s much more mellow.
 The new day yawns.
 It stretches. There is a chill
  
 in the air. Time to pull on
 a wooly or a fleece
 to drink tea. To just sit
 facing the blank day,
 to see if my mind
 can be empty
  
 of the world’s cares,
 its need for prayers.
 It’s not half-light nor full dark.
 Soon the days
 and the nights, too
 will know the perfect poise
  
 the betwixt, the between,
 have the equilibrium
 and grace of ambling spider
 pirouetting capers in its nets -
 this time out of time,
 the bliss of not yet.
  
 Copyright © 2019 Bee Smith. All rights reserved

Call And Response

~ sojourningsmith ~ Leave a comment

The prompt from #30DaysOfSummerWritingChallenge visits Campground Sessions. I found myself awake in the ambrosial hours, otherwise known as stupid o’ clock, and finally gave up on sleep, cracking on with the writing prompt for the Poetry Daily. Having written, I managed to get a nap after dawn. Although I am far from sporty, I am familiar with the campground summer experience. Camping is a relatively inexpensive way to have a holiday. For over five years post-recession, we spent nine days under canvas in Ireland each year. (Never say I am not hardy. Yes, sometimes it rained hard.) Then the desire for comfort overtook the desire for campground cameraderie. But I know what it’s like.


 Call and Response
 
 Seeing you all in huddled shadows
 of flickering flame,
 the spray of stray sparks
 as the logs crack and fall into embers.
 
 Hands clutch hot chocolate in enamel mugs.
 Smoke slowly kippers
 the congregation.
 The murmur of soft spoken talk at night,
 
 it's quiet back and forth. A laugh  echoes
 across the campground
 where most almost sleep.
 Drifts of distant infant's wails gone midnight.
 
 The treads of late night loo visitor's thud 
 is muffled by dew.
 Canvas zips screech loud
 when the only sound is the rise and fall
 
 of hundreds of campers dreaming under
 canvas under sky
 calling each other.
 Their dreams are deep. Their responses in sighs. 

 

 Copyright © 2019 Bee Smith. All rights reserved

In three weeks time I will have crossed the 365 day poem a day finish line. I am beginning to look back in the archive for poems that need some tweaking and polish to pull together my first solo poetry collection. Do you have any memories of stand out poems you have especially liked that you read on the blog over the past year? It would help me immeasurably if you would let me know which ones were the most effective and affecting. Pop the title in the comments section, please. And thank you!

Featured Photo by Joris Voeten on Unsplash

The Chaste Moon

~ sojourningsmith ~ 1 Comment

I mentioned in yesterday’s post that the March Full Moon, which arrived at 1:42 am this morning my local time, is known by many names. Indigenous people have called it Storm Moon, but it is also known as the Worm moon and the Chaste Moon. This was also the last of a triiumverate of Supermoons, where the full moon is seen as super close to the earth. Where I live in Ireland each of those nights has been shrouded in cloud cover.

But this,in itself was very beautiful. The Old Dog had a restless night, which meant my sleep has been broken. I gave up all pretense of getting back to sleep before dawn. I also realised that this was the first time in a long while that I was writing the Poetry Daily in darkness, the holy hours before dawn known as the amrit vela. I checked back last year and found that the full moon seems to disrupt my sleep pattern and make it more likely for me to writing in those ambrosial hours. https://sojourningsmith.blog/2018/11/21/ambrosial-hours/.

But less historical rumination and down to the daily poem, inspired by the ghostly twilight that fell over the landscape at full moon.

The Chaste Moon

When moonlight lies like a mist
upon a wetland drenched
in ghostly twilight, 
there is a restless pulse
beyond the clouded veil.
It casts a milky caul.

This chaste moon delivers
the gift of sight
as it gently beams through
a scrim of bridal tuille,
chiffon and voile that's laced 
across the night skyline.

Is that why they call this
the Chaste Moon?
A virgin is called.
An angel is announced.
She's made a mother
by Lady Day.

The full moon is making
Her Magnificat.
The egg is laid.
The seed is sown.
What all could hope
is now set to be born.
 
 
 Copyright © 2019 Bee Smith. All rights reserved.