When summer beats upon the shore,
we’ll stand and watch its hue, allured
by Nature’s power and grace, as if
in awe… as if in her immortal face
we find some comfort, some respite
from human cares.
So in my prayers I call the sea,
in dreams I gather clouds;
beyond all bounds I call on Nature’s dignity
to dress this broken rock
with warmth and tender flowers.
Toes, waist, chest, chin, then swallowed by the sea,
I’m a mermaid, brought up on ear popping sandstone rock,
sent to salsa through a musical element not our own,
where fish may do-si-do through lace of flimsy lungs.
Dive with me heartlong through musical wave ranges,
sparking the excitement of a gazillion castanets.
Let me tantalise you with Chalchiuhtlicue’s castanets,
while jealous Eurybia pirouettes by us in the sea.
Now we’ll reach below the surface for deeper ranges,
and I’ll show you how to roll the waves and rock
in ecstatic freedom, with fine, uninhibited lungs,
until you exclaim, and claim the water as your own.
Then you and I can find a soundscape of our own,
a balletic collaboration, moving beyond castanets,
to a place where dolphins commune and human lungs
split into feather gills, fleet and sexy for the sea;
where we will meet our thermal origins, ready to rock,
and pause to play great fossil pipes at unheard ranges.
When we have absorbed those harmonic underwater ranges,
and sea beard grows between teeth not quite our own;
when we have become our ancestors, and belong to the rock;
somewhere above us still will play those spangled castanets,
and as you lay yourself on my shelf beneath the sea,
so the dance of our bodies will return us up with new lungs.
First breath, as we surface, oxygen thrust into salty lungs;
First cry, as we emerge, sound splintering mountain ranges;
First swim, as we splash, amazed, to the music of the sea;
sent to salsa through an element not our own,
accompanied by the clap of Chalchiuhtlicue’s castanets,
we’ll reach a place where water drums roar on sandstone rock.
We’ll help each other up, upon the drums of sandstone rock,
and, beating chests, exalted in our triumph, fill our lungs
with air, sea below us clapping – a gazillion castanets,
we’ll sing of life and rock and roll and mountain ranges,
and know the music of the earth, which we can never own,
but that we clambered up to dance to, from the sea.
From our hold upon this rock, the clapping of castanets
and our own song, belted with the mighty power of human lungs,
rings out across mountain ranges, and to the bottom of the sea.
Our Birth Day breaks,
pouring sand through quickened senses,
restoring shine to tarnished self-belief.
Wrapped in miracles we become anew
beautiful in a small animal way,
and stride with eyes lifted in purpose,
opposing damaged feet.
Today, in the town squares of all great cities
around this beautiful globe,
we will, by common consent, remove divisive flags
hung by history’s tainted shreds of angry pride;
folding them away like old aunty’s table cloths.
.
And see draped instead, from mountain heights,
a more fantastic sight; our real heritage.
Reflective of all earth’s passion and intensity
absorbing in amazement all our pain,
this is our rainbow – and the music of a shared song.
There is a man sits in our crescent moon tonight
with jocular face and monocle.
Hunter-warriors beware,
he will rock away this precious slice of light
should you prey on easy meat from a high-handed horse.
.
There is a man sits in our crescent moon tonight
tickling xylophones with whiskery fingers.
As ice drops flicker
give time over haste to winter tunes,
to taste his gruffle-sung stories of stars and wonderment.
.
There is a man sits in our crescent moon tonight
making immortal space for us.
He cradles kindness
in extraordinarily long arms,
and gifts weary travellers with chuckling beneficence.
Economically, it was a difficult time
women itched in woollen scarves
men stamped their frosted minds
a cruel wind blew till their steaming chips were down.
..
Socially, it was a treacherous climb
He clung to the frozen earth with hooked toes
vertically
.
.
impossible
pebbles snapping like dragons’ teeth
stressed grass grazing his aching knees.
.
Astrologically, he read the perfect sign
and chose this day to set his sight
at the hill above vast unmolested sea.
.
At the summit
he would put down his heavy pack
lean his broad back against a small patch of undamaged sky
and watch history unfold.
Winter-thin windows:
wafers for Snow Queen banquets.
Draughts whisper treason.
War is a wasted land,
a wounded state where none may truly live,
so may not be defended;
whose deep ravines, made from dry, parted lips,
wide, fearful eyes, and broken homesteads,
are empty of prophet, in death, devoid of meaning;
where the very skin of earth is cut,
and love lies bombed and bleeding.
But
Courage can be a capital city
a freehold space where opponents come to sit
and hope be ever mended;
whose public belvederes and bowers, made strong
by transparent rumination and debate
all teem with life, in truth, where words have meaning;
where the very heart of earth is put,
and peace upheld with feeling.
The quick flick change dealt by the day
is hard to reconcile
when trauma preys on happiness
and grief tugs on its tail
and like a rusty spring, resolve
grows brittle over time
so every heaviness weighs more
than once, when we were primed.
But do not turn away from me
to spare me from your care
I also suffer silently
don’t be afraid to share.
Perhaps, if we tessellate our years
collaborate our smiles
we’ll find new ways to gird ourselves
to bear life’s rocky miles.
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