“The stars are closer than you think.”
The shaman left me with this admonition,
hobbling away with his stick of gnarled ash.
There was a look in his eye,
glint of a star — his soul,
still stalking this barren land.
As the day began to break,
blue shafts were piercing orange and red,
a warning; creation speaking
and thought becoming instant form;
a mounting cumulus cloud,
shape of a lion’s head.
“The world is mind,” he’d said,
“dreaming us into existence
and what we may be.”
The cloud soon morphed
to show a crescent Moon,
then Venus, morning and evening star,
companions for my journey home.
Copyright Francis 2021
The Elloe Recorder 
This poem is SO lovely….and transcendent. Creation speaking, the cloud like a lion, “the world is mind, dreaming us into existence.” Wow. What a glorious poem!
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Oh bless you! You’re so kind, thank you 🙏🏻
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A beautiful poem, Francis. I love the wisdom of the shaman, the glint of a star in his eye, and the wonderful use of colour to describe sunrise, I also love the way the ‘mounting cumulus cloud, shape of a lion’s head’ morphs to show moon and star, heavenly companions.
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Bless you Kim, many thanks 🙏🏻
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“The world is mind,” – I love that idea. A deep, philosophical and magical poem!
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I felt the reader started out so intimate and then at the end saw a wider worldview which seemed to include even more.
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Thank you Ingrid, the Buddhist philosophy to which I still give some credence states that everything is appearance to mind 😮🤔🤐😪😀
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The sky holds many secrets. (K)
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Thank you 🙏🏻
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