a blue coraled night
saw me away
the catch in my throat
bagged up with my bones
in a care lined sack

I watched steel birds
cry their farewells to the
naked amber streets
of my sugar grimed
balm of a city
it’s resonant hum
my ambient song

they took this fledgling
to disappearing shores
and a stretch of sea
that was just
a pig with wings
until the wind rushed in
and pulled me clear

his boat lulls
as the hooks wind in
hung with iridescent
ocean blades
little line dancers
of flailing breath
that twitch and slither
into the trough

a century of seasons
are stowed behind
his watery eyes
though he does not weep
for the sleek and flesh
he has no time
or gaps to fill
his leathered hands
a constant husband
to the sea

and here he will be
until the fish run dry
until his wispy smile
no longer persuades
the belly of cloud
to let the sun through

these little spirits that we make
and unfold with such
delicacy and wonder
have only to be held
in ardently cupped
and edifying hands
surrendering their growing light
to seep between our fingers
as they weave their threads
like curious vines
to find their own
sun drenched hills

it is the day of sighs
time to purge cankerous pains
and wander down cathedralled paths
un-hook those cloud filled sacks
leave them swaying in the trees
teased by a quickening wind
that stirs the sweetly
brackened breath of the wood
and black cloth covered eyes
are brightened by a glittering
painterly sun

always she turns
our lidless lambent orb
our pebble smoothed rock
untethered in a noiseless night
purling weightless with the stars

our halcyon mother
wakes to this new dawn
feeling her seed has soured
her waters not so sweet
in a muddied turn of the tide

but her drift through time
with a billion other brilliances
holds endless transformations
a turn of new pages
a shine of new light

the quiet must be heard
an arboreal stillness
oaks in meditation standing sentinels
in their frosted amber crust
a misted radiance in the morning blaze

we must listen
as the leaves listen
carrying their messages from the wind
rippling through the mildewing trees
to the edge of the wood

have we lost the drift of the sun
forgotten how the shade falls
where the gauzy moss grows
as the pheasant rasps
in our coming turn to winter

it rains
little wet whips on the pane
percolations of thought
struggling to find their downward path
blurring the silent adagio dance
of blackthorn leaf and limb
blown by welkin’s bellows
around the warm grey comfort of home

it rains
gales fore-warned
with mellifluous distant words
absorbed by souls away from shore
fretful of boiling cauldrons to come
forties, cromarty, forth
wretched pernicious seas
holding fast their hope for harbour