It is always dawn and dusk
Time moves on geographically
The terminator line marches inexorably
Round and round the planet
Smoothed across the sparkling Pacific
Cut to shreds by jagged mountains
Rippled across desert dunes
Unnoticed in the mega-cities
Each second brings a thousand tiny awakenings
A thousand tiny refugees from sleep
A thousand predatory opportunities
A thousand closings
Copyright © 2017 Kim Whysall-Hammond
Previously published on In Between Hangovers
Deep in the time of eclipse
As birds bed down and dusk creeps up
We see the Suns halo and crown
Reaching out to her children
Light in the darkness
Sunlight scatters from escaping electrons
Bounces off minute dust particles
While stripped atoms glow as crown jewels
Incandescently hot
Ethereal furnace
The act of seeing makes real
The fact of knowing sees beauty
The inner joyousness of the Universe
Lifts me
Up to the light
Copyright © 2017 Kim Whysall-Hammond
Driving in a roast red desert
Headlights staring into primeval dark
The untrammeled sky glorious
Above us a bridge of stars
Rivering between rocky horizons
At once near and so very far
Cricking my neck to see
I bounced around the back of the open jeep
Absorbing, amid the shudders, splendor
Star birth and death, worlds hidden by distance
Great glowing nebulae
Fat in the centre, a devouring black hole
Copyright © 2017 Kim Whysall-Hammond
And we stand upon this globe
Asking of the Universe
What?
Recognition?
Salvation?
Whatever you please
In it’s glory
(Shown by our ingenuity and craft
As we build orbital telescopes)
The Universe does not need us
Unless as an observer
Are we here simply to watch?
Look up, look up
Glory awaits
Copyright © 2017 Kim Whysall-Hammond
Dunes
Rolling along the shore
Linear formation
Field of Dunes
Rounded and steep sloped
Not barren sand
But sheltering life
A sandy ecosystem
That
In turn
Holds down the drifting sand
Rolling along the shore
Copyright © 2017 Kim Whysall-Hammond
Folk tales of little people abound
Retreating to the deep Earth
Now and then to emerge and engage
Ensnare or enslave
With trickery or with passion
Peripatetic you may have been
Leaving small trace of your lives
But deep in an African cave
We have found you
Naledi, little stars
We term the women who reclaimed you to the light
Underground astronauts
Yet you carried your beloved dead here
Through narrow clefts, over parlous depths
To lay them tenderly down to rest
As we stare into our deep past
And find you, Homo naledi
Those of us who wonder
Those of us who marvel
Are ensnared and enamoured
Copyright © 2017 Kim Whysall-Hammond
The discovery of fossils of a new human species (Homo Naledi) is, in itself, a fascinating story. But why they are so ‘cool’ is very well explained by our fellow blogger on Fossil History at https://fossilhistory.wordpress.com/2015/09/10/homo-naledi-why-these-fossils-are-so-friggen-cool/
National Geographic describes them as “A fully modern hand sported wackily curved fingers, fit for a creature climbing trees. The shoulders were apish too, and the widely flaring blades of the pelvis were as primitive as Lucy’s—but the bottom of the same pelvis looked like a modern human’s. The leg bones started out shaped like an australopithecine’s but gathered modernity as they descended toward the ground. The feet were virtually indistinguishable from our own.”
The “underground astronauts” (left to right): Becca Peixotto, Alia Gurtov, Elen Feuerriegel, Marina Elliott, K. Lindsay (Eaves) Hunter and Hannah Morris.
Chalklands
Chalk undulates across Southern England
Hills, gentle yet steep
Can be overtopped by clay peppered with flints
So treasured by the old folk
As old as the hills is true here
The chalk is a two hundred million year ocean
Stiffened and folded over time
By our living planet
Several human species
Have hunted in these valleys
Have dug into and sculpted these hills
Have left their ghosts for us to trace
The ancient monuments we treasure
Hill forts, stone circles, long barrows
Are but modern remnants
Compared to the first folk
My hills have deep roots
Copyright © 2017 Kim Whysall-Hammond
“Bees do have a smell, you know, and if they don’t they should, for their feet are dusted with spices from a million flowers.”
― Ray Bradbury
The Smell of bees
I saw my first bee today, hearing buzzing while weeding
I searched for the little fellow and found him
Bumbling around the Lungwort
Buzzing with glee in the surprise warmth
Black, gold with a red bum
Furry and indomitable
He also harvests my garden
And mine depends on his
Its relief to see a bee today, with all the talk of their demise
Poisoned by chemicals that may yet kill us
Directly, as doses build, or indirectly
As my garden companions cease to pollinate
And harvests drop
The smell of small dusty bees
Will no longer tantalise my nostrils
Nor will the fragrance of food
Copyright © 2017 Kim Whysall-Hammond
Another Monday, another watercolour. Here’s an Apollo Astronaut:
Copyright © 2017 Kim Whysall-Hammond
Royal Edinburgh Observatory
Poor lost instrument, trapped in your tower
Where the dome never opens from year to year.
They no longer use you to search the heavens
Battered and bruised, missing parts, you lurk in the darkness of your cage
If only I could find glass plates, unwrap them in the dark, open the dome and set you free
Copyright © 2015 Kim Whysall-Hammond
Re-blogged from 2015.
