Peter Lilly: Poems

Photo by Silje Lilly At Sea We are all at sea. The horizon is fluid, It’s mountains are   Ever changing. Squalls bring tomorrow   into now. We intertwine our limbs Into the rigging And hope the waves   Don’t tear us at the seams, As the celestial force of time Crashes over our bows And threatens our creaky hull With a premature eternity   We are all at sea. Planning our routes by Liquid landmarks. A drift in a stillness That stretches today   Into starvation. We sink our teeth   Into the decks And hope for waves To vibrate in our gums, Our souls thirst for wind To catch our sails and move us   From an eternal moment Into change. James 4:13-16 This poem about uncertainty, about unexpected change that can disturb our plans, and about a muting of hoped for change, seems to be appropriate during the current crisis. In our modern times, especially in developed countries, our ro...

Gentle chill mingles with February sun to warm my bones, and prick my skin with cold.  Lake calm sleep breath waves expose the broken shells that make up the earth,  and keep the land believing in winter.  When I lived in the U.K. the first sunny day of spring would burn itself onto my memory with relief from the cold, joy in the warmth, and anticipation for the summer to come. Most years I would write a poem on that day about my excitement (such as ' I have missed the sun ' written in April 2011).  Now I live in Montpellier in the south of France, that feeling comes a little earlier in the year. This year it was towards the end of February, when we were at the beach near Sète for the day. It was warm but the (relative) cold of winter was still clinging to the air. The feeling given by the weather matched  the relief and thankfulness we feel at finally moving into our flat here in Montpellier. 

I wanted to look out from the edge of the world and feel the weight of a thousand miles of ocean breaking against my toes. I wanted to look out, to fearlessly stand on overhanging cliff face, adding to the nothing before me with my breath. I wanted to look out from the flat of my back at the immeasurable depth of the blackness between the stars, all thinly veiled in our life-parcel atmosphere. Give me distance: so I can taste the untampered air of the sea; so I can see a thousand peaked horizon reverberating the globe before my feebly observing eyes; so I can be pinned to the earth by starlight, who's heat and fury is refracted by lightyears to become peace and beauty. Give me sea, give me mountains, give me stars, and keep your phoney medicine. - Written on Monday 04/03/12