-
sweet summer
if i were to slip
sideways between trees
between worlds,
blur my edges
until my skin turns scale
and bark and hide – it would be a soft
rain, mud morning like this;
with a dawn chorus of frogs pulsing
cell membranes, jubilant, tympanic.
and as the sun climbs
the clouded sky
cicadas will while away
their day with
songs of love.
Multimedia collage by Steven Hurt. -
relief
the ocean
has come
to find me
under
this starless sky.i wait
breathless as the trees
in this salt mist,
hoping the night
brings rain. -
travels in the holy land (or driving home from a school meeting)
on the long road home
low light etches
verge grass in amber
while hills roll
long-shadowed and lazy
under an ocean of high mist.
for a moment in passing
the roadside tree
stands ablaze
as the forest buzzard,
feathers aflame with evening,
alights on arced wings
dips her haloed head
and folds into form. -
15/1
And if it be
we come
to this far shore
empty and alone,
let it be
love that
called us-
and love
that brings
us home. -
14/1
if it must be
that we break
a thousand times
to this broken world –
let it be this sky,
this river,
this deep gulp
forest breath
that breaks us open
to the impossible beauty
that lives this world too. -
the path
our feet know songs of longing
our lips could never utter
on this path to the river
written in root-shadow, dust and stone.and when this path opens
to light dappling water
and trees leaning close,
there is a prayer to the river
only our skin can speak. -
unfurl
like petals to the sun
we open to this living
because we are here now
because life asks
the living to live
because this morning roused us
from our broken sleep,
sang us jubilant
as the stars faded
and our bones hummed
with new light
dappled on the forest floor. -
ripe
silent as noon
in summer
the heat of the day
turns sunlight sugar sweet –
and fruit begins to ripen
around sleeping seed,
and we sigh into that silence
and settle to the turning
of the year. -
the world is my ashtray
fridays mostly
we walk the long stretch
of beach along the indian ocean
with nothing but sea
and all that lives it
between us and the
cold deep south
of antartica.we walk with intention –
gleaning the dunes
and high tide line
of garbage, gathering
the bits of plastic
that we did not want and
the ocean couldn’t swallow.it is pleasant enough
two hours on the beach
turquoise waves and deep sand,
finding all the things
i have long misplaced.
here my toothpaste lid
smoothed along the ridges
from years tumbling pebble
beneath the waves.
here my shampoo bottle
colonised by small molluscs,
embellished by algae –
lollipop stick, lollipop stick,
lollipop stick,, lollipop stick,
and always at some point
the last straw.it is hard not to get bogged down
by all of this that might be mine
hard not to panic when the cigarette butt count
climbs into the hundreds
it is hard for my oh so human eyes
to tell shell fragment from micro plastic
and i know how plastic is made.
harder still for gannet and gull.we bring it home
the garbage
sort the recyclables
and throw the rest away –
garbage truck, landfill,
incinerate, away.
but how do you commit matter
to dead static away on a planet
that lives and flows
rich with nutrient cycles
and water cycles
and weather patterns that
cycle tide slow cyclones
across the oceans.and when the rain falls
and the roads run clean
rushing storm water to the sea,
how is the ocean
not the away we won’t mention
when we throw this all away.
-
on the nature of love at the end of the world
love never changed her mind
or changed her ways.
she has always been
in love with you,
with the fiery heart
of your living –
your burning passions
that could set a room aflame –
the quiet your of being
in the emptiness.
she knows your vulnerabilities,
your need to keep yourself warm.
and perhaps she should have
said something (and perhaps she did)
when your living flame
turned to burning desire
and trees began to fall in your wake.and you need to know
she loves you no less
now that the world is on fire.
that she walks with you,
tattered and burned
thirsty feet crunching warm ash,
that she still hopes you will
see yourself in her eyes and know
that there never was any need –
that you always had been enough.