Danielle Pfeifer created a gorgeous cover for my 2nd collection Mucky Garden. This book has both poetry and prose selections.
Heather Finton's writing
Author: heather
This was the first collection of my poetry; grateful thanks to Angel Hall for making such a precise and lovely cover for Joy Landing
So pleased to offer you an online option to buy the Tender Gold collection at this link. And thanks to Bianca Martin for the wonderful cover artwork!
If snails could speak
imagine the ponderous space
between utterings
slow soundings of kindness
freed from syllables
their headpieces
tasting wind
so near the earth
following no path,
leaving shiny trails
unnoticed
in their own view
carrying home
as a natural weight
bellies
propelled by ground
their words
in shapes
of silence.
There were four triangles
resting under ice
in my freezer
left there at Christmas
when my sister,
who made them by hand,
went home.
I was prostrate
to listen
that day in the sun
before the grief welled up
and although meditation
sounds like sitting still
my body’s wisdom
turned on the oven
waited for heat
let those four delicacies
warm my kitchen
then my belly.
So when the question arose
that prompted my sobs
knees on the ground
the sweet taste of salt
was already in my mouth
the tears added savour
to unravelled caring
all this love
pointless and deep
lonely
and connected.
The past seven months have been so full of living, some of it quite raw. Deaths and transitions and lots of listening to others’ painful moments. And yet there has been such a sweetness, like a descant adding its melody to the main line of sound. Sources of inspiration this year have included eagles, my husband, the physical space of the round earth room crafted by my friends… water and waves in Australia… the beauty of enjoying both words and silence with the people I love. Dancing. Invoking kindness, and watching it arrive, sometimes with such joyful and quirky synchronicities.
Not quite crazy
I let myself be touched
by the freefalling void
the utter senselessness
of being alive
or dead
meaning
is just a convention,
syllables sounding
in a muscle
under a scalp
and somehow shared
occasionally
in almost-empty rooms.
Speaking of illusion
seems cruel
so we mask ourselves
in kind intention
and envy the freedom
of the naked.
Despite my yearning
for beauty in any form
what touches me
keeps peeling form away
roughly
gently
with each awkward
breath.
I’d committed to describing “poetry in motion” … where my poems are moving… and neglected to celebrate my December 2015 collection called Prickly Kindness. Grateful that I’ve had enough poems arrive to put together 5 collections since 2013. Grateful for the way they are touching some of the people who read them.
Those beautiful women
singing
each with her frailty
lighting her face
yearning and delight
in nimble fingers
strumming and plucking
a sweet kindness
of pine trees
more real than hothouse rose;
weaving an invitation,
gently commanding our yes.
Help me to be horny
for joy
spreading through this wave
of muscles and sensations
not just my own
but all of us
feeding our appetites
for kindness
cleaning the air
with our choices
stopping the bombfall
because there are better games,
more heartfelt
ways to laugh
sharing food
because people we love
are hungry.