Mari Maxwell – Celebrations

Download PDF Here 13th Anniversary
Live Encounters Poetry & Writing Volume One December 2022.

Celebrations, poems by Mari Maxwell.

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Celebrations

Oh praise the mighty redwood, red orange giants
with their heads in the clouds.

And too the silver birch, shedding bleached skin
layer by layer to heart’s core.

Embrace a sweet scented spruce and the blue of her needles.

Glory in the chestnut’s magnificent girth
her dangling spiked conkers tempting play.

Linger where the May blush of sweet apple blossom
and cherry blossom, gift confetti paths.

Watch for the thorny spells from the hawthorn
even as the weeping willow lays down her branches,
tendrils sweeping the grass.

These trees of my childhood still sing.
Canopies that hush suburban life
yet still carry me home.

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Imaginings

I am lion
tawny
soft fuzzy
raging roar

I am ox-eyed daisy
long stemmed
flowing free
white petals
mustard centre
lazing daisy

I am aria
notes tumbling
projecting through the sky
dipping
soaring
soothing souls

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This Night She Ascends

im Sarah Nelson McCown

She rises, a swan
stretching, reaching, soaring
downy pearl luminous

feather tips seizing cross currents
pumping, thrusting skyward

reminders of a trapped butterfly indoors
wings folded seeking the window,
brushing it with a sigh.

Open the window why don’t you.
She would set it free.

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© Mari Maxwell

Mari Maxwell received a 2020/21 Professional Development Award with the Arts Council of Ireland and a 2019/2020 Words Ireland, Mayo County Council Mentorship. She is working on her debut poetry collection and a novel. Mari dedicates this publication to her long-time dear friend Sarah Nelson McCown who died in January 2022. Forever missed, we spread and share her love, kindness and gentleness and ask you to also plant these seeds into the universe.