Reflection from the crib

This poem is a response to a Facebook post I received from an old friend in the USA. 

The photographer is unknown.

"I" said the dog -
"I'll lie and dream
on this bed of straw
so warm and clean -
shared with a Saviour
sweet and kind -
it's Christmas Eve
and He won't mind"


Hazel Hall
11 December 2012

A Christmas vision

I wrote this poem last year. It traveled to some interesting places before finding itself in the newsletter of an African church. It describes a little Christmas ritual of mine.

every Christmas Eve
not knowing fully why
I go outside to peer into the night sky

half expecting to see
the galactic door ajar
and the glimpse of one illusive sparkling star -

its mystic message showered
over the sleeping world
a secret swathed in swaddling transiently uncurled

for the watching ones
seeking eternity
here on earth - a brief insight of what might be

if this planet's people
with clarity of mind
could leave all their extraneous cravings far behind

and searching deep inside
their starry souls forgive
themselves and honor other ways that we could live -

receiving joy from giving -
not needing power - and light
encompassing the living from infinite heights

(our heart's heights) - who can tell
where that star could lead
in a struggling world of meagerness and greed -

so I raise my face
as the hour is bowed
although most times the sky is only filled with cloud

but hope lifts up its eyes
to the hills of faith -
a child is love - and love could save the human race -

it is that star I seek
in my reflective gaze
into the hazy heights beyond my living days


© Hazel SS Hall
6 December 2011

Memorial sequence on the anniversary of Pete Griffith's death

These three tanka are in memory of Pete Griffith who passed away a year ago. We miss you, Pete.

they have sold
your old house - since you went
to the stone home
with lonely garden
you will never tend

remembering
the clutter in your place -
they peer inside
drinking in the emptiness
that helps them to forget

a second
twixt present and past
now come and gone
short as a beam of light
long as eternity


hazel SS hall

Old music in a new land

This is one of two poems that I read at the Tuggeranong Arts Centre on 17 November. It responds to a performance of Persian music at the Writers' Centre which I organised for the School of Music Poets earlier in the year.  The musicians were Salar Ayoubi (tar and vocals) and Farzin Jamatlou (tonbak) and Shahriar  Etemadi Tajbaksh normally a pianist, who provided vocals on this particular occasion. The tar is a plucked stringed instrument with two heart-shaped heads. The tonbak is a drum played with the fingers and hand.




you play your music
at the Writers' Centre
music of the old -
framed above you
is a woman with a cat
she is the new -
dressed in the blue
of oceans
between two countries
her cat is the old -
your drum -
curled with throbbing purr
the cat listens -
the woman listens -
you do not know her
but music brings
different ones together

your tar holds two hearts
end to end -
point of departure -
point of arrival -
intertwining
old and new
this is how it must be
making music together
sharing the old
in a new land -
you play your music
at the Writers' Centre -
you play
a script for the future -
the world depends
on this




© hazel SS hall
31 October 2012

I will thread you a poem

I read this poem at the Tuggeranong Arts Centre at a night of Persian poetry and music. It will be published in a pamphlet responding to Persian Music shortly. Thanks to Salar Ayoubi (tar musician and vocalist) and his ensemble for making this possible.


I will thread you a poem
Writing poetry is like stringing random pearls. -Hafez (1326-1390)

I'll take the words that paint my suffering
and choose the finest piece of silken string
to thread those thoughts into a wondrous poem
so exquisite your heart will soar and sing

you'll hear my words as if they had been sewn
like pearls to light the dark when you're alone
caresses on a silken string to woo
this nightingale I yearn to make my own

emeralds and sapphires keen with green and blue
will see my words and dream of wandering through
to add the colors of the earth and sky
till every pearl strung in its random queue

has rainbow sheen enough to have you sigh
and quiver like a restless butterfly -
I'll place this poem around your slender throat
and you will sing my love and make reply

then every gem - transformed to music note -
will carry us places so remote
we'll learn the secrets of the universe
and wisdom that the ancient sages wrote

we'll see the moon and stars disperse
into the pearly dawn's soft silken purse
and when the sun bursts through its crimson ring
each living thing will listen to my verse

I'll take the words that paint my suffering ..........


© hazel SS hall
29 June 2012

Soliloquy

I wrote this poem on 7 September on the Poets' Train from Canberra to Sydney. Jill played her violin on the platform. This poem is dedicated to Jill and her partner Koula.





o violin - you sob another tune
of sorrow on this warm Spring afternoon
strength in the determined bow that glides
through notes that shimmer in the country side
we travel - as they sing and slip and slide
in sweet glissandi - flashing like the wide
strong landscape - while the music of the train
reflects upon your psalm in quiet refrain

perhaps this tune outlines the poet's goal
to travel into nature's very soul
and with our art - discover and retrace
its intricacy - till we find our place
within - that prize - that dazzling secret bit
of heaven - and make our meaning out of it


hazel ss hall