Milk soaked saffron

There’s little in common
between turquoise and indigo
duck egg and cobalt

midday and evening blue
transparent blue of my newborn’s eyes
impenetrable blue of a shadowed sea

best when paired
with milk soaked saffron

a serene and weightless palate.

Rubies

Winter lays bare
what summer hides
naked trunks, smooth
rough misshapen branches
fallen leaves.

A cercis tree flirts my eye
feathers my prayer to
watch for the
mystery of stigmata
as beads of purple

respond to spring’s
hosannah. Trunk and
branches stud with rubies
to catch the eye
of spotted pardalote

and those who care
to stop, to watch
to wait, to caress
this moment
of mystery.

Roslyn White lives in Victoria. A wife, mother, grandmother and spiritual director who in addition to the joys of word in song, also discovered those of poetry and the power of the spoken and written word, and published her first collection of poetry, ‘Stammerings’, last year.

Readers’ original and unpublished poems of up to 40 lines can be emailed, with postal address, to [email protected]. Submissions should be in the body of the email, not as attachments. A poetry book will be awarded to each accepted contributor.