Echo Monthly
Reviewing the Works of Poets, each month, 
with extracts from the best moments..

*  Heather Lennox * Noel Fuller *

Heather Lennox
who returned to the echo and posted in April decided to keep us on the mark and posted again. Two poems, one a surprisingly delighted song, unseasonally titled 'Spring' - ah well, dreams are good, and thoughts of new life with them:

       Come with me my lady,
       My love.
       Into the garden,
       My Dove

one could almost dance to this, it is like something out of an olde anthology, and full and fresh and simple,

       The birds sing their joy
       My love.
       For life is starting
       My dove.

The New life is as pointed as Heather's poetic character, this garden is not all innocence, is it ?

       The flowers they do open
       My love.
       The bees are darting
       My dove.

       The sun is glowing warm
       My love.
       Swift flies the Martin
       My dove

Carpe Diem: in the midst of autumn comes the reminder of spring, and
in the poem of new life.. a sense of it's passing.

Heather's other poem : "The Mews is upon me" is a witty, charming piece of work. For Catlovers - of whom there are many in this echo - there is much to relate to

       This little cat of mine
       Grey and white.
       Fur so fine,
       She's not very bright.

in every line, though perhaps most in the last verse of all..

       Here I suffer and sit.
       Need a drink.
       Caught by 'Kit'.
       Gee! Pussified! Stink!

Those who are owned by cats need servants, amen.
 

Noel Fuller
     Another poet who hasn't posted often, but who has always posted well, is Noel Fuller, who broke his own record, to post twice in May (happy smile). He may well be surprised - though perhaps not - to hear that his response to 'A great place' ranks in my mind with the best poetry. Here it is.. a gem of writing, evocative, full of depth, and the silent responses of a well tuned love:
     " I've enjoyed most being among trees by myself and sometimes on the fringe of a large group where the many leave the one wrapped in reverent solitude alone. I do not try to get somewhere or do anything  but be carried into an enchantment by wonder and the living stillness, with the magic flickering of shadows and light in the peripheral vision.  With the help of insect repellant I tend to come to rest on some mossy chair and have remained as still as the trees for hours.   This enchantment has come upon me even in that little park west of upper Queen Street (Auckland) that has such a secret existence. Even in that small still island amongst the roar and bustle of the city have I found the vivid sense of an encompassing life uniting all these strands.  Yet I have not been there in years.  It is easy to imagine it built out and forget it is there, perhaps the real heart of Auckland.
    Sometimes I notice in a classroom a child with a capacity for inner stillness and silence where the greater trees of thought and  imagination may grow."

Thank you for the enormous pleasure this gives me Noel !

Noel's other poem,  The Beginning of Disbelief is one of those works which is greater than the sum of its parts.

    Gold at the end of the rainbow?
    Always too far for me to go!
    One icy morning shrouded in mist
    Out the window a rainbow I wist
    Low, one end on the road I must go.
    Going for milk to the farmer's shed
    Barefoot through potholes I sped
    Breaking in some a layer of ice
    Till in one a rainbow I spied.
    Surely this is its end
    But of a pot of gold
    The oily mud no story told!

Such a simple story, so cleanly told. The atmosphere of shed and potholes, the dream of gold and the richness of the oily mud on the barefeet so image the human condition that it is hard to better this apparently small piece of work. I am filled with admiration, and the desire to do as well..