Poetry and prose with mosses in mind
Art and Energy organise monthly catch ups for members of our Bury the Giant Club and in July our theme was ‘celebrating mosses through poetry and prose’.
We spent a fabulous hour sharing our inspiration for creative writing, many members are inspired by the work of Robin Wall Kimmerer and her book Gathering Moss. Equally inspiring is the work of Elizabeth-Jane Burnett and her poetry Twelve Words for Moss and Julian Colton’s poem Moss is included below.
We were delighted to listen to some of our friends and Club members reading their poetry - Caroline’s poem Moss and Micha’s poem The mosses speak are included in this blog. Clare shared a link to her personal blog where she writes about how human beings affect and are affected by the natural world of which we are part, and the related theology and psychology of connectedness.
As a group we even tried our hand at Zoom chat poetry with each member contributing their own single line! You can read this poem below too.
Do get in touch to share your own creativity and you might like to join the Bury the Giant Club and share your words there too, everyone is welcome to join us.
“I’m down in the foss
Where the moss child grows.
Where the slime and the mould
And the wind howls and blows.
On the arms of stems green
A marvel to be seen,
The sheen, the keen
Bright eyes that have been.
I’ve known you forever
Before I was born.
On the rocks you clung on
The dusk, night and the dawn.
Tiny tendrils poke out
Bog moss sucks with its snout,
The water, the vapour,
The rain all about.
It stores it, claws it
Down to the bottom
The earth truly sodden
Like mattresses of cotton.
So soft, I would wear you
Make silk garments of blue dew
A crown so majestic
You grew it, who knew?”
“Hello my little mosses
A deep welcoming mattress on the forest floor
There for me to rest on when I’m weary and when I die
There is a gametophyte, an obvious multicellular part of a bryophyte, that lays green with the sun.
Beautiful longevity is all we need.
Moss is like a sponge, soaking up the rain
Micro moods and miles of mossy smiles mesmerise me.
You surprised me in my dream but glowing. Unexpected and eerie. Like you were illuminating the darkness in my heart.”
“‘The mosses speak’
We watch you. Come now.
Climb inside our secrets.
We watch you race, fret, hide - like snails.
Why fight when you can join the dance?
We speak a different language,
unfurling answers over concrete,
oozed beginnings darkly wrought
to birth fluid life.
Porous explorers, we drape
our quiet song between the gaps
of your knowing, creeping
like sages wrapped in wet wisdom.
Our sphagnum opus, starburst
feathers whispering a chorus
of raindrop, rhizome-rich.
There is treasure to be found in shadows,
You are so young, so green.
Lie upon lion-thick weft
and rest. Calm those rose-pink flutters.
Quench that thirsty fear with ancient touch.
Let us stroke your hot haze. It is all
too much. Too much.”
“Cathedral light
in singing silence
moss flowers”
“I like moss.
Patron saint of floral lost causes
you have to admire its persistence
the certain, resilient silence
such blithe, unprepossessing paradox –
utterly resolute, while so soft, so velvet.
Survives, thrives in dim, damp places:
up sides of crumbling houses
down slanted, slated, tiled roofs;
the crack in the exposed wall
shadowed lee beyond the garden gate.
Invades repointed chimney breast
colonises the neglected and deeply uprooted.
Beauty in bottle , emerald and Lincoln greens
I assume the house-proud scrub it away
fear it undermining petty foundations
prosaic aesthetes underappreciate
how sheer delight in obscurity
spreads into luxuriant poetry.
I like moss.”
