Category: Life & Nature

Two Heavenly Lights

“In this place of darkness and malediction we can but stand in awe and remember its stateless, faceless and nameless victims. Close your eyes and look: endless nocturnal processions are converging here, and here it is always night. Here heaven and earth are on fire.” — Elie Wiesel

A reminder that even in a world shadowed by sorrow, the night still offers its quieter lights — small, celestial gestures that help us keep looking up.






Two Heavenly Lights

I’m a sucker for a crescent moon,
and there below his silver spoon

on this cloudy wintry night
I espied another bright light —

a vision unexpectedly imbued,
sidling toward the glowing moon.

Venus, elegantly blushing with attractiveness,
and the moon beaming with handsomeness —

two twinkling heavenly lights
coyly conversing through the veil of night.






Ivor Steven ©  June 2026

Throwback Friday, Eating Chocolates and Watching Wars

Chocolates are delightfully delicious … wars are deadly and destructive …
Above the valley, a white-feathered messenger rises — reminding us how fragile peace can be

Yesterday we visited the Moorabool Valley Chocolate Café for coffee and cake, and the moment brought this poem back to me — a piece I wrote in August 2018, when a simple liquor chocolate stirred memories, questions, and the ache of a world still at war.






Eating Chocolates And Watching Wars (Revised)

Hungrily, I’m eating a liquor chocolate —
a selfish heavenly delight,
arousing my old mind’s senses.

I wonder
what she would be thinking,
looking down from the stars
through her sensitive olive eyes —
her everlasting smile,
her gracious courage,
her generous heart,
her forgiving soul,
her love for me and you.

I wonder
what she would be thinking,
seeing these futile, bloody wars
through her compassionate olive eyes —
the dead and maimed,
the millions of shuffling homeless,
the distraught, broken families,
the crying children locked in sheds,
the desperate refugees with no beds.

I wonder
what she would be thinking
while she preciously
holds the last white dove,
observing these senseless wars
that never ever ends.





And for the song that holds the cracks and the light, here is Leonard Cohen’s Anthem — offered to a world where the last white dove may never fly free again.




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Until Eyes Hear Sound

Amazon >> Amazon.com : Until Eyes Hear Sound

Lulu Books >>  Until Eyes Hear Sound (lulu.com)



Perceptions:

Amazon >>  Perceptions : Steven, Ivor, Knight, Derrick: Amazon.com.au: Books
Lulu Books >>  Perceptions (lulu.com)



Tullawalla:

Amazon >> Tullawalla A Meeting Place Where My Empty Hands are Full of Memories and Rhymes : Steven, Ivor: Amazon.com.au: Books


OR: >> You may email me directly for a signed copy at
ivorrs20@gmail.com … and I can send you a PayPal account,
for the Book, plus Postage.


Ivor Steven ©  June 2026

A Magic Mushroom Party

A moonlit whisper drifts across the strawberry field, where the night’s small wonders gather for their secret celebration.





A Magical Mushroom Party


Did you hear — on the grapevine
about the magic mushroom party?
The local fungi
have peacefully impregnated
the neighbourhood strawberry field
and all moonlit buttons are welcome.
Grab an umbrella and your gumboots,
bring your own spores and a watering can.

…join the cheery clan,
there’s plenty of toadstools,
and the soirée’s fairy rings
of our magical and mysterious land
have conjured up the old Beatles band.






And as the fairy rings keep peacefully humming, the old songs rise again beneath the glowing caps of night.





Ivor Steven ©  June 2026

Words Fall Through the Window

This poem grew from three small conversations across the WordPress community — first with David, then with Nancy, and then with David once more. Each reply carried its own quiet image, and when I gathered them together, they seemed to form a single drift of thought, as if the words had slipped through the same window and landed in one place.
In stanza order, they are.
1. David: Sketches, poems, scraps, or: Dreams – The Skeptic’s Kaddish 
2. Nancy: Unread Message – The Elephant’s Trunk 
3. David: Intellectual or Public introspectual – The Skeptic’s Kaddish 


Between light and shadow, these moments gather — small echoes leading toward the words that follow.



Written in response to Sadje’s ‘What Do You See? #345’ prompt
>> What do you see # 345- 15, June- 2026 – Keep it alive

A quiet moment at the window that opened into the poem below






Words Fall Through the Window

Looking through a window 
Searching for tomorrow 
There is only an afterglow 
As life lingers in limbo

Petals softly fall 
Knowing the sound of silence 
“Do not wait for me” 

Sailing alone in my rescue craft 
I sense a spirited updraught 
rising through the stairwell’s shaft
 




Where the view softens, and the silence deepens, somewhere beyond the glass, the music carries what the words leave behind




Ivor Steven ©  June 2026

Our DATE with Destiny

Below is a small acrostic piece – a few lines arranged to catch the essence of the moment, a kind of epitome distilled from the fading light.

As the golden eye strained to feel the light, twilight gathered what the day left behind





Our DATE with Destiny


Deep behind twilight’s hessian sky
And down below the auburn horizon
There resides life’s golden eye
Ethereally aware of Earth’s dying oceans

As the world wilts under the strain
Do we hold the weight of what remains?





As the light settles – for the feelings that linger after the day is done, here is the song that holds them.




Ivor Steven ©  June 2026

The Sun’s Winter Glow

This morning’s winter sun momentarily slipped through the clouds just long enough to set the eucalyptus leaves shimmering.




The Sun’s Winter Glow


Mother Nature’s wryly smiling, silently proud
there above the lingering dark clouds.
The waning winter sun shyly glows,
and its diffused light knows
how to make the eucalyptus leaves sparkle
during the season’s arctic cycle.





A stillness to sit with, as the day folds into the deeper quiet where winter light lingers.




Ivor Steven ©  June 2026

The Poet’s Secret Notebook

Before dawn settled, and after a sleepless night, these small doorways into a wandering mind found their way into my bedside notebook…

An unexpected sign on our walk home — a cheerful echo to the morning’s wandering thoughts





The Poet’s Secret Notebook

Turn the poet’s page
Feel his restless rage

Open secret doors
Hunger for more

Repair broken windows
Learn from nature’s crows

Your windows are not mirrors
Reflections are not the jurors’

Follow your dreams
Do not listen to machines






From secret pages to shifting strings, may the music carry the last of these wandering thoughts into your dreams




Ivor Steven ©  June 2026

Throwback Friday, Full Moon Rising

In keeping with this week’s moon theme, today’s Throwback Friday poem drifts back to November 2024, when the moon seemed to whisper of endurance and flight. Drawn from Chapter 6 of Time Hears No Sound, Travel and Life: Time Flies — it traces the solitary courage of a seagull chasing horizons.


Under the full moon’s watch, the journey continues — across water, memory, and time.





Full Moon Rising



I am an aging seagull
And I must be out of my skull

Thinking that I’m fit enough
To fly further than the bluff

No matter, there is a full moon
To guide me across this barren dune

My journey is a lonely one
But I’m not to be outdone

I know there is another blue ocean
Beyond this World’s wavering horizon







And under this quiet moon, the journey keeps unfolding — one small, steady heartbeat at a time.

Ivor Steven ©  June 2026