Literary Vegan

The swallows glide in a line, Clouds behind  And leap like a heartbeat on a screen Tiny Pulses of life.  LJ Ireton 2023

If I'm quiet now - On my own a lot, Ink under plants Tree trunk by water, Bare feet - It's because I'm done with chaos. My own mind tortured me  With tangled noise - Distress signals screaming, Siren doubts, singing louder Over each other For the sanity trophy In a soup bowl. Silence Once was to me  An unreachable precious prayer, The ghostlike glitter water The thirsting throat imagines In the desert. I dipped disbelieving, grateful hands  Into this stream And here I swim. Here I swim. LJ Ireton 2023

After the rain -  Stark white and lingering grey, A procession of black balloons  Ghosted across  An invisible street in the clouds. Seven solemn phantoms made by man - Light enough to be lifted away from the earth  And yet, I thought What weight must they be carrying? LJ Ireton 2023

At the deepest part of the stream, Young silver-green fish dart Into the dark parts Of piled-up rocks - A rubble edge of a new world.  Their white fins flap in the finding - Sunken stones are waiting shadows,  A shelter for tiny slippery souls. But their side eyes re-emerge Looking older. In the sleek space of black, A pause in the dip and rise - Safety has changed colour. They are cautious leaving these Stone shadows now.  Minute lights flicker on and off  Under the water - Decisions in small silk bodies. LJ Ireton 2023

The lake bites, pre-historic, Cold - When clouds come  Black ink spreads under my limbs. I swim into wet green sun - Less unknown, And towards a lone white beak. Here I hover, held by red eyes - Electric  on the wild  w ater Deciding  On the natural  In me. LJ Ireton 2023

Each day I run down The blossom-strewn bank To the shallow stream -  Brown stone under pink And watch the lone bird Visiting - Heron, egret, moorhen, crow. Today I brought you with me For the first time - Showed you how we must get low Under the trees, Took you to the brown stones And standing on the pink We saw not one, but two jewelled mandarins Together. I tried to memorize the russet colour, The white stripes  But I always think in symbols And couldn't deny The imagery here - Excited I repeated this to you, Over and over. I had wanted to show you the  Chance of it, The beauty of the birds But you got to see, instead How my mind worked On blossom-strewn banks Precious, In the water.  LJ Ireton 2023

I crouch lower Under the howling wind - The never tiring traveller carrying a constant cry From the unprotected ones. The Garden has been forgotten - At least from the ground I can watch the forget-me-nots lift into  Small  Blue  Butterflies. LJ Ireton 2023