How quick we are

How quick we are to take offence,
to deem the other wrong,
for triggering our own response,
when they could not have known,
how tender was the wound within,
that hurt we keep alive,
through our beliefs and circumstance;
through what we tell ourselves.
The pain we feel belongs to us,
and it is sourced within,
for words can never hurt us,
unless we give them leave,
and let them carry us along,
on victim's fragile wings,
to make us feel that we are right,
to validate our needs.
It is our choice to ride the words,
in any way they speak,
and not the fault of others,
if they should bring us grief,
for they are only messengers,
and carry what we see,
far more than they will ever bring
what others do believe.

Stories

In every single moment

the stories do hold sway,

in tellings we  create,

to make the world we know.
We may not think it matters,

these tales we bring to birth,

and yet they make material,

the heart of what they are.
For narrative is power,

drawn forth from Mind to be,

the newly born reality;

made manifest, made real.

Offered words

We think we offer out the words
as they appear to us,
to find that in receiving,
they've changed to something else.
These gatherings of letters,
we call communicate,
can mean so many different things,
to other minds and tastes.
And yet within the sharing,
we find a place to be,
where seeking most to understand,
I find the you in me.

The universal web

The universal web is spread
across the world we know,
and manifests as you and me,
as rock, as sky, as tree.
The spidered stretch is endless,
no then, or when, or how,
but simply is the all that is;
the Mother's arms spread wide.
Those moments of becoming
create the world anew,
expressing all that God may be;
the Now, eternally.

In an instant of forgetting.....

In an instant of forgetting
the remembered soon was lost,
and awareness had surrendered,
to distraction's empty words.
In an instant of remembering,
forgetting soon was lost,
and awareness had returned,
with mindful, fulsome truths.

Mindful Writing prompt - Spring

From Winter's broad, bare breast,
Spring suckles into joy,
and in the helpless falling,
draws Summer's waiting arms.

Mindful Writing prompt - Rebirth

In blossomed blown becoming,
I saw myself revealed,
in petalled heralding of spring;
my Soul in life reborn.

Life breathed in

Life breathed in
and then
breathed out
and took you,
home again,
with nothing
left to hold
or touch,
but dreams
and memories.

This world exists

Oil on Canvas - Oak Trees 2009 - Roslyn Ross


This world exists within the mind,
where eye reflects the I,
and all we see and feel and hear,
is but the song of time.

Self-harm

Oil on Canvas - Kangaroo Island - 2009 Roslyn Ross

Slivered soak of weeping flesh,
is sculpted deep and true,
to show the face of suffering
which I will wear for you.
The cross of life's confessional,
is carved upon my soul,
and written deep in gentled arms;
nailed firm to history's wall.
Raised high upon ancestral trees,
sunk deep in bitter earth,
my pain is layered dreamily;
revealed as Shadow's curse.
The crucifixion is complete,
my destiny assured,
as cloven hoof and budded horns,
bear witness to your cause.

The eyes of time

We think we watch the years and yet,

They have their own sure pace,

Which runs behind the eyes of time

And leaves us looking back.

Creativity

The call from my creative Self
is whispered in the day
and shouted in the darkest night,
so there is no mistake,
and I cannot ignore the cry,
nor damp the fires of art,
which burn, blaze and simmer
through everything I am.

Connectedness

The filaments of time and space
thread lightly through the world,
and weave the cloth connectedness,
which makes us all as one.

From this world to the next

We step lightly
from this world
to the next,
surprised
most of all,
by how familiar
it  is,
and how simply
and easily,
we can move
from what we
call life, to
what we call
death.
Expecting
as we were,
something different
to what we knew;
something other
than the reality
of life,
because
we had forgotten,
or we had believed
the lies which
others told,
about our
eternal natures.
And mostly,
people laughed,
because once
on the other side,
they could see
again, so clearly,
there was
no other side.
There was
just life,
as there
had always been,
separated by
our own
forgetting;
but never
truly lost.

What matters most of all

The world abounds in woeful news
which I still need to read,
and yet I know the truth which counts,
is sourced in other things.

But when words in beauty speak,
life's soul displays itself,
reveals in yet another way,
what matters most of all.

Her mind was twisted..

Her mind was twisted, tortured

in wrapped and whispered tales,

which wound their way around

as succoured tentacles.

My mother came to me in dreams

My mother came to me in dreams

And spoke in hushed, slow tones

Of things she never said in life,

Of who she might have been.

I listened close to dribbled words

And saw the image wrought,

Of woman slowly sacrificed

And knew how much she’d lost.

We wonder who we are

We wonder
who we are
and then
we stumble
into Self,
and find
in mirrored
reckoning,
reflections
of our truth.

On madness and death

Oil on canvas 2012- When the Moon kissed the Sea - Roslyn Ross

She laughed and in the instant,
returned herself to now
arriving at the door of life,
through years of bitter grief.
And in that instant falling,
from fields of maddened hell,
she found the Self left long ago;
answered Soul's shrill call. 
The lunar land left far behind,
still haunted halls of mind,
but she was needed in the world,
which others held as real.
So trailing ribboned memory,
she walked once more in time,
that we could also recognise;
until Death called her home.

As life crept up

Watercolour, 2012 - Watered flowers - Roslyn Ross

 As life crept up
through dawdling days
to gently hold my hand,
I heard Soul whisper,
dreamily, that
I had lost my way.
The tumbled thoughts
then gathered round,
in gallant harmony,
to guide me on
through mysteries;
where truth could
take a stand.

They walk with me

Watercolour: 2011 - Petalled Pink - Roslyn ross

They walk with me
these shreds of dreams,
like ghosts from
times long gone, and
cling to drifts of day
and night, as if to
claim their past.
I cannot touch
or hold their truth,
nor know them
as they are, for all
is lost on sleep's deep
stage; revealed
phantasmal dance.

We are born

We are born
with a certain amount
of breaths,
say the Arabs,
and when
 the final one
arrives,
we leave;
so breathe
each breath,
beautifully and
gratefully, for
it is written
that
you do not
know,
which one
will be
your last.

I kept my silence

I kept my silence,
shrouded fear,
and held to brittle
truth, which only
served, to squander
hope, betray the
best I was.

In thundered sure becoming

In thundered, sure becoming
the rain falls hard and full,
upon the lip and breast of day,
to honour nature's will.

RAW

The words we use

hold deeper truths,

which often are ignored,

if even known,

or recognised,

as what they really are.

A word like 'war'

seems simple,

and yet we know

it's truth,

and when

we turn it on itself;

reveals it yet again.

For war is only

ever raw, in tooth

and claw and death;

as something basic,

backward - untouched

by wiser Self.
However much 

we tell ourselves,

that war will bring

us good - the hidden

heart within the word

puts lie in bed 

with death.

How easily they talk of war

How easily they talk of war,
those who will never fight,
nor likely see the blood
of those, they love,
in awful light. How easily
they threaten bombs and
bullets as a way, to solve
some future problem,
in ghastly, gruesome ways.
How easily they spread
their hate, and offer up
their fears, to gods of
their own making - to
blood and grief and tears.

The anniversary of my mother's death

It was the other way around,

than some would say was meant;

I mothered and I cared for you

as child and woman grown.

And yet through years of smiles

and tears, of desperate pain

and hope, you held me in

some ghostly arms, in ways

I did not know. And now

the tears, can fall at whim,

for will can play no part,

reminding me that through

it all, you gently held

my heart. And in the deep

remembering, I know

you would repeat -

you did your best,

there was no more

that you could give or be.

Within the passing of the years....

Within the passing of the years
those who have walked with me,
and are now gone to other worlds,
still visit secretly, as if to say,
what you can see, is not all that
there is, and we remain a breath
away, as we have always been.

They are words

They are words,
 things we use
and string together,
 hoping
that they will fall
 into place
and allow us
 to connect -
help others
to understand,
convey something
of what we believe
we are and wish
to say -
 but ultimately
they are just
words.

Friends

My heart in silent whispering
reached out and greeted you,
as friend and Soul companion,
through all that we may know.
Your heart in silent whispering,
reached out and greeted me,
as friend and Soul companion,
through all that we may know.

To my father

You went to war at seventeen
and left your soul behind,
in sundered grief and jungled
hell your life was so defined.
You brought the demons
back with you, to huddle
in the light, of creatured
days, and angered hours,
of deep and desperate night.
Like sunlight in refelection,
through nature's canopy,
I glimpsed on rare occasions,
the man you might have been.

On Julian Assange

How easily we disregard
the battles fought to win,
the principles which underpin
this democratic world.
How quickly we betray,
ignore, the freedoms
we have gained, from those
who fought in battles past,
for justice and our rights.
How easily we now ignore,
the damage which is done,
by flouting law and human rights;
expediency then rules.
How quickly we betray,
ignore, the freedoms
we have gained, from those
who fought in battles past,
for justice and our rights.
And in the doing ignorant,
we squander what we have,
condemn those who will follow,
to fight for it again.