My younger daughter and her husband were due to fly home to Malaysia on Friday 18th July 2014, when we heard the devastating news that flight MH17 had been  shot down over the Ukraine.

    This is my resulting poem ...................................

Returning  Home

During the night

          the heavens ignited

with anger.  Lightning

         then thunder forced

the sky awake.

 

Your pale cheeks

       glistened with tears

silvery as the rain

       coursing down

the misted windows.

At daybreak,

the white-fringed daisies

gazed at the warming sun,

            the frayed clouds -           

and trembled for you.

 

We kissed, said goodbye

            face to face,

my eyes holding fast to yours.

            Then I gave you up

to the boundless sky, and prayed.

©Sue Burley 2014

Sunset from St. John’s

 

Because dusk is settling over the valley,

the yews are etched black

                                    against a runaway sky,

their branches tossed by a mean east wind.

 

Here are the high lands of the sky,

with violet hills and knots of inky cloud

like wooded knolls:

                                    ribbons of pale grey

split the sun before racing west.

Gulls thresh and fall on the angry wind,

wings dipped in liquid gold

                                    and edged with pink.

Sue Burley