Pilot light still on –
when I find inspiration
it bursts into flame
Sylvia Stevens
Pilot light
sylvia stevens
The book of all things
I am in a dark cell
my book is on my lap
a ray of light falls on it –
suddenly it springs open
and beauty flies on wings
of butterflies and birds
sunlight floods the cramped room
and where there once were walls
there are trees
I am on the edge of a forest
I part some saplings and
enter a world of light and
blue sky, and the perfume
of unseen flowers fills my being and
in the distance I see Michael –
he is walking towards me. I
run to him and we embrace
He can see well again. We
run and run and laugh, until
exhausted we fall on to the
forest floor and listen to the
music of the trees –
my book has no name
it is the book of all things
all possibilities, all joys
and I never want to close it
Sylvia Stevens
Deer in the morning wood
The wind in the trees
makes me want to leap and run
she is my own breath
I wake before first light, to the rustle of insects inside the hollow tree, where I have slept. I have been warm and safe. Dawn comes silver through the trees, lighting the drops of dew to diamonds. Silver turns gold. In the dappled shade I lick jewels from tall grasses. We sit together, the tree and I, in the glowing morning, listening to the music of the birds, like golden rain. Quietly we listen to the language of the wind, as she sways the branches and flutters the leaves. We sit together in a patch of sunlight and watch the moon disappear.
Sylvia Stevens
Inspired
Inspired by Exhibition – at the Tate Modern
My name is Georgia, and I am in the desert at dawn. I love this place, the silence, the smell of the desert sand and the wind in my hair. I am alone here. The distant hills not yet touched by the sun are dark and brooding. The sky is cerulean, fading to rose. It is still cold, but soon it will be too hot to walk here, so I must hurry to find what I am looking for – bones – bleached white by the sun. I have just found a little skull with antlers, and I will paint it against this dawn sky. I paint to show you beauty in unexpected places.
The dawn light is giving way to an azure sky as hard as the bones I have just found with holes in them. I will paint them against the fierce sky to make fine abstracts.
The sun is beginning to burn my face, the wind has gone, and I must leave this wild place, but I will be back.
My name is Georgia. Georgia O’Keeffe, remember me.
Sylvia Stevens
Art Exhibitions
A couple of quick plugs for great local art exhibitions
– in the case of C-Art at Rheged [#rheged] because time is running out fast and it’s absolutely worth a visit before it closes this coming Sunday 13th November 2016. Ray Ogden’s Fisher King (image at Ray Ogden) got a mention here – but there’s so much other inspirational art to whet a writer’s appetite too.
– and after you’ve been to Rheged and are wondering where else you could enjoy a fab teashop and take in a bit more art whilst you’re about it, our own Sylvia Stevens, gifted poet and painter, has an exhibition of some of her work at Thornthwaite Galleries [#thornthwaitegalleries] and Teashop.
– M&P
Stardust
Stardust
The iron clouds shake out
their dust of stars, a galaxy
to feather-fall and form
in powder-patterns on the earth.
Slowly they pile in sleep-soft
pillows on the stones, rounding
the rocks, smoothing the
scars. Lazily they lie on
ledges and along the limbs
of trees; in the settling
silence as colour is covered.
The wind sweeps over the
whiteness, snaking the surface
in ripples and ribbons. Shifting
the spaces to reshape the
ridges. Sifting and circling the
spindrift – high…
to cover the sky.
The silver night crystals the
cloaks of the moon-glazed
mountains; shines in the
glass-cold hollow of a frozen
footprint, in the stillness
in the timeless indigo
under the gazeless glitter of the stars.
Sylvia Stevens
Mungrisdale Writers 