2005-02-02T17:01:00.004+11:00

RETURN

1

She is turning
in her life-enhancing
decomposing swamp-lands
revealing her underbelly of raw material
the dark-mother is swimming
in apocalytic ashen-fields
like the alchemist she is
surrendering to her miracle
of transformation

2

What role did she play
in the fickle tragi-comedy
set on such a grand scale ?

The exits the entrances
abrupt disruptive
like a passionate actor
obeying the flurried stage-notes
of a fussy director

The persuasive lightening gatherer
wedged between two giants:
strict Saturn unfathomed Neptune
and Uranus the rebellious one
come to full opposition

the enlightened erupter
allowing no thought before action
his preoccupation a bigger panorama
the consequences one would not know
until too late, moving her round the globe
a conspiring puppeteer manipulating
his weird kin - a generation of wind-up
wired-in obedient dolls

3

She questions, how can this be ?
When I hold all within me
the universe made of me
how could I have been
other than what I am ?

4

With my birth all worlds began
with my death all things die
and my spirit gestating forming
evolving billions of years
at one with the universe
transforming returning
to the primeval clay
belonging to no one
but myself

5

And the galaxy spirals
same rhythm
earthly gene pattern
as within, so without
a human cell, so the cosmos
now, in this mere second
of all universal time
understood only in reverie
you become whole
knowing you are the total sum
of all you have been - are yet to be
nothing can alter this
it simply is

6

When you unfurled
from your mother's womb
the universe unfurled with you
showing how small
how very large you are
how stars recognise in you
soul fragment - a sharing -
the star your memory
an echo of what you used to be

7

You have entered
the drama of gestation
the crimson birth-dance
returning again and again
from that far-time when you left
your seamless hand-print
on the rock wall of the cave
of first consciousness

8

With your return
you bring new eyes of wonder
feel her subtle changes of mood
her seasons, brand-new
as you look astonished
how all things obey
her viridian law
and bow
to simple patterns
unfolding shape of leaf
shape of leaf unchanging

9

In your dreams
time does not exist
you are whole
in your dreams
no divisions
in your dreams
in your dreams
you roam free

Pamela Sidney 2000

Understanding

I understand

consciousness is quickening

for all humanity

evolution so rapid

time appears to have quickened

I understand we are matter

speeding through a universe

sometimes ordered

sometimes chaotic

that this universe

has beauty beyond words

resounding like music

reverberating chords

forever reaching harmonies

I understand

religious faith

slows the journey of evolution

relying on blind belief

slowing spiritual growth

and understanding

I understand

random chaotic events

as much as I do balance

and seeming perfection

perfection being

that unattainable state

one aspires to

but never reaches

existing only

in minute ephemeral inklings

I understand

the cohesive web of nature

the one voice of ecology

that one-god worship disconnects

earthly beings from their crucial need

to be one with wilderness

I understand

we are the stuff of stars

universal cosmic beings

briefly caring

for an earthly utopia

but ultimately

we are creatures of light

speeding through

the never ending dark

holding spirit within us

spirit in every speck of matter

in every creeping insect

every stone

every animal

that ever lived

I understand

we are spirit beings

speeding through space

with no sense of home

but the home of spirit

residing within us

I understand

we belong to deep space

where

as minute particles

we will eventually join together

forming new universes

new constellations

new star colonies

Pamela Sidney 1999

COSMOS POEMSby MELBOURNE POET PAMELA SIDNEY