Here is some news for those who have been asking whether I've ever had a poem published!  Not one, but two poems have appeared in a magazine called "The Dawntreader", Issue 26,  Summer 2014.

As you can imagine, I am really pleased about this............................. Here they are.

6 Acre Meadow

 

Lush meadow grass grows

hustled by warm spring air;     

buttercups, sun bright, beckon –

dandelions disperse seconds,

clocking up time.

Crows in low gear, lift

cast on the may-scented breeze,

their wings ebony, flight fluid as the brook.

©Sue Burley

Above Ringmore

At Ringmore, All Hallows stands proud

above the deep-cut Devon lanes.

A tractor, fat tyres higher than a man

pulls silage uphill between steep hedges.

 

Sheep drift clouding the falling fields.

From the churchyard the sea glints pewter

in the cleft of the valley, the soft air full

of  sweet mown grass; a faint taste of salt.

Above Ringmore, cornflowers bunch in jars,

guard headstones with epitaphs in curlicue script,

mourn dead babies and wives gone too soon.

“The Lord giveth, the Lord taketh away.”

At noon sea mist curls in drenching our faces                   

wrapping the ships out of Plymouth, sinuous

between the laurel’s salt-scoured leaves;

summer seems past yet this is only June.

Bells ring from a distant tower,

the air so still for once, the birds silent.

The earth moves through us; we turn our backs

for the last time, fearful that it might stop

 

Sue Burley

Tsunami

Aceh, Sumatra – 26^th December 2004

There is always

calm before a storm.

This day dawns fine,

but six miles deep

the sea floor heaves.

Divers near the rocks

see fevered shoals

burst in disarray

and those who watch

the sea recede

just stand and stare,

their thin cries seized

by rearing cliffs

of foaming surf.

  * * * *

Among the lost,

a tiny girl dragged

by waves,

half drowned;

tossed as debris

on to remote shores...

then ten years on,

found; a gift held fast            

in her mother’s arms –

and grief  is quenched by joy.

 

© Sue Burley

On 10^th August, 2014, it was reported that Raudhatul Jannah (now aged 14) was returned to her parents, after being recognised on Banyak Island, approx 25 miles from the West Aceh coast.