Live Encounters Poetry & Writing, Volume One, December 2020.
Born in Germany in 1954, Wiltrud lives in the West of Ireland, near Portumna for many years now. Since many years she is a member of the”Portumna Pen Pushers” a wonderful writers group. Her poems are published in: Baffle Poetry Collections. Maple Leaves Anthology 2005. The Blue Max Review 2015. Boyne Berries 2015, 2018. SiarSceal festival, Anthology-Centenary in Reflection 1916. in 2016, also 2018, 2019. Shorelines Arts Festival 2018 “Pens to Lens” project. Her villanelle “Wuerzburg 16th March 2015” was set to soprano and piano by composer Derek Ball.
Shadow Bloomers
Troubles get dug up, worries weeded out, anger clipped!
On a glorious day, time and age forgotten,
gardening is sheer bliss.
Back-pained and sun-flushed
I turn to a cool corner for a rest.
Huge heads of white bloom spill over
a moss cushioned wall,
bluey green rushes at its feet.
Phone in hand, I lean back into this mass of flowers.
They hug me like excited friends, kissing each other and me.
Sun blushed and smiling, I struggle for a spot in a selfie.
Hydrangea aborescens is determined to get on screen.
A dozen faces, pixelated by florets surround me.
I often spot them amongst the shrubs and trees-
my dead people, who loved me in life.
Their silent presence comforts me, keeps me safe.
Atmosphere
The firmament above Mount Fuji sparkles with stars.
Rumbles, rising far west vibrate in the air,
as wild horses gallop across the Gobi desert.
Come twilight the sweet aroma of vanilla
blows across the vast Indian Ocean.
The Madagascar orchids settle Australians to sleep.
In Istanbul a Muezzin calls for the day’s last prayer,
while faintly catching the music and clapping
of circle dancers at a wedding feast somewhere in Greece.
A full moon shimmers across Galway Bay.
Waves lap against the harbour wall and echo the flapping wings
of geese, gathering for the evening in Nova Scotia.
Herdsmen scan the horizon before the sudden darkness.
It will be another chilly night in the Kalahari Desert.
But the rhythms of Brazil warm with a last fiery glow.
In a Mexico city slum twenty four babies are born at midnight.
Their mothers pray for their future, dream for them,
barely hearing children’s laughter in a Tokyo school yard.
Feeling Good
The laundry flaps
and waves in the breeze,
applauding the day.
Bending, stretching,
to clip on the pegs,
my body moves in rhythm.
My arms embrace heaven
with basketfulls of exuberance.
I pull the line suspended between the trees.
Through the lace of the birch leaves,
sunlight sprinkles confetti,
from a sky rinsed with freshness.
Perfumed with delight
I unfold another damp sheet.
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