there’s an open strip of land
where seeds used to root
and fold their luscious leaves
into the richness of their birth

there’s a want in me
and a drop of sun and pearl of rain
will cheat the thought
that such deserts can be greened

I run my fingers still
through the softness of it’s earth
feel the fleeting shadowed ripeness
form again in my distant mind

how it flies
our all seeing spirit
framing the muck and the mire
in bright horizons of blue

the flash of a feathered wave
the unabashed
love
calm
resonant rumblings from the deep
the lightest touch of skin
a sinking blood orange sun

languorous weed and kelp
suckered to it’s sea bones
and splayed in mournful rest
burnishing to the wind
a drift of fleshy brine
memory upon memory
a soak over all these years
in my senses
it waits for the turning tide
captive to it’s wishes
to dance in it’s watery trance
once more

their bones speak
whispering from the solid earth
that gives them harbour

and the grimace
that their past has formed
must be met with a stoical eye

in the blend of all that has gone
and the focus we see
in all that is to come

a soul warming day
of thoughtful cold and grey
of quiet movement
and a tolling bell summoning the rain
of which each heavenly pearl
enraptures me more deeply still
into the lanes and light that built my bones
and freshly coat the paths that walk me back
to where I will rest my head once more
when the evening comes
and softly lays me down

we wait and watch
like cows
lugubrious luminous eyes
wondering
and rusting tractors in their proliferant beds
quiet
absorbing
in hedgerows a bustle of birds
drenched in the need for new life
they too taste the warming of our recent chills

dark is the delver
searcher of secrets
slipping beneath
abandoned eyes
enticing morsels
from forgotten corners
to dance and weave
a performance of
hapless marionettes