Sunday 16 November 2014

     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

Wednesday 5 November 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