How we bring beauty
into our lives
these tulips
yellow and purple
with their long green
leaves and stems
a beauty grown
out of the the earth
brought into the home
to embellish the day
and as the days pass
their beauty will
slowly fade
and they will be
returned to the earth :
the pursuit of beauty
may be forever but
only love can resist
the passing of time
only love
John Lyons
In your reading
you come across a phrase
that captures
your imagination
that pleases you
how the body is light
how in its youth
it dances and sways
to life’s rhythms
and as you mature
you become aware
that you are the fruit
of your own making
you lift a finger
you get on with it
you make your bed
and you lie in it
a hawk hovering
above a field of barley
has seen something
I would not have seen
and so it hangs in the air
for a purpose
and I hold the idea of it
in my head
and in these words
John Lyons
Amid the marshes tall pylons stand
in fields where sheep graze :
adjacent to these pastures
a field filled with giant bulrushes
more than you could hope to count
The risk of flooding
has saved the land
from development
Here is home
to black-tailed godwit
to snipe and teal and dunlin
to little grebe and redshanks
to lapwings and herons
here too proud kingfishers
have established their domain
and on the banks
of the channels and gulleys
water voles abound
John Lyons
There is dark matter
and there is the beauty
of flesh on the bare bones
the one sustains the other
We call fish the flower
of the sea and judge all else
by the rose standard
Spring is upon us
and notice how the birds
have changed their tune
There is nothing abstract
about life or poetry
and all things point
to an origin and to an end
the process is what lies
in between : displacement
and the acquisition
of a certain knowledge
And talk of timeless
means for the time being
the bird in the hand
the bare bones of love
dark matter
for the time being
John Lyons
Perhaps to live abroad
is to wear
a perpetual disguise
to be a passenger
in an alien identity :
but then there is the soul
that deep sense of self
that brooks no deception
that stares out deeper
than any mirror
that looks into the heart
and knows why the rose
has been forsaken
for the begonia
the acorn
for the coconut palm
John Lyons
Failure is commonplace
and most of us fail
mostly
though we may enjoy
minor or temporary success
from time to time
We know where it will all end
under leaves and grass
under snow when the weather is inclement
or when the wind and the rain
rattle the eaves
where we once lived
Love is the cornerstone
it is the common thread
more beautiful in its day
than any rose :
it is the root
of all life all human life
Defy the slings and arrows
defy the thorns
and make much of it
indeed make the most of it
John Lyons
There is an absolutely exquisite poem in the Collected Poems of Charles Olson ‘Only the Red Fox, Only the Crow’ that should be read by all who love poetry.
Was it all for this
that the fairest river
blent its murmurs
to my cradle songs
that alder and oak
and sycamore shades
sent forth a voice
that flowed ceaselessly
along my dreams
made music
and composed my thoughts
giving me thus
amid the fret
of human dwellings
a frank foretaste
of calm
and of the love
that was to come ?
John Lyons
Stars in the crucible
of endless space
the forge of our souls
our image and likeness
the realities
of which we dream
fashioned from distant
yet homely energies
earth time
space time
all so disparate
and yet so cohesive
Tenderness
from the fiery furnace
the capacity to love
latent in every atom
that reaches out
for another
living communities
of the palpitating heart
held warmly
in the mind
John Lyons
That distant night in Mexico
the main square in Mérida
where I sat alone
on a bench
in the intense heat
and at my feet
a carpet of tiny spiders
the bustle and the silence
the clack clack clack of a classroom
full of young women
learning to type
in the silence
And the day before
down by the bus station
a thousand or more birds
on the wires
all waiting to depart
just as I was
the memory still warm
waiting to depart
John Lyons
Under the scorching sun
in Arles Vincent painted
fields of ripe wheat
before the harvest
Wheat he discovered
is the very same colour
as the sunlight
whence it comes
confirming
that the sun is
a deep-hued
cadmium yellow
John Lyons
johnjosephlyons 