from the budding
to the versed
every shade
and gender melt
we have run together
from the day into this
transient dark
collective arms
around an urgent ardour
left clean and bare
as sea washed stones
tumbled
joined
as purified and spent
as we know
we should always be
spaces
so shadows fall
for Mark, our brother…
the moon throws softer
shadows when the glare of light
moves beyond our reach
splintered trees
for the fallen 1914 to 1918
he had risen
from the clawing clay
that would keep
his flesh and fears
the stench and guns
now distant waves
and in the splintered trees
the ravens black jewel
the overseer of loss
beckons him on
‘it’s as it should be
there’s nothing to be done’
past
what has gone stands here
still, and too our withered air
when we have flown
autumn
autumn quietly
slips between the sheets, soughing
our ruminant thoughts
winds of change
the wind came
out of exile
from the north
tempering the
somnolent summer
that turns a head
and slouches south
beaten for now
it freshens in
respite for
heaving lungs
and tacky skin
blowing purity
through thoughts
simplifying
the next stretch
into mindful
preparations
to slow our
need for the world
to forgive
its expectations
and leave the cold
to steer our course
to be or not to be
it was the innocence
of a question
that floated across me
‘would you rather..’
like an oversized bubble
readily iridescent
on its surface
‘live for ever..’
hiding a universe
of existential depths
‘or to never have..’
that stopped me short
I shirked only for the time
it took to breathe
‘been born at all’
a step to the sand
a life lived in Bits
thins and pales
let the sun dance
across their eyes
and pixilate their hair
a step to the sand is
what young minds
were made for
a douse of the sea
a scent of our earth
to stitch in
undeletable smiles
tin man child
tin man sits with rusted dreams
and cradles this hard fought fruit
a comfort wrapped diviner
for all his past mistakes
he tries to stop from looking back
as his body starts to grieve
pulling petals from his chest
to lay at her naked feet
for the journey
for the softer road
waiting for snow
the keeners have come
to shoulder away the dying light
and sit heads bowed
in a moribund grey
as this night falls
with a dark that
gently folds us in
and shields what
we cannot see
until the dawn
our reimagined morning