I cried myself into the sea Each arrow word that came to me Each sword and axe in summit spheres Those tender hooks of love and fear
I gave back to the salty waves The life I’d planned for the life she gave An endless merging into one When stories have become outdone No truth once told can be outrun The doors have closed and now we've come To be a standing stone no more Just a bleaching piece of wood on the shore
I cried myself into the rocks I washed my face till time forgot I pushed my hands into the water And asked to remember I was her daughter I grieved and let the break take momentum To tear me apart in tundra and chasm What the heart has keenly sown together Let it be warp and weft in her kaleidoscope weather
I sat upon the flagstone shore and cried till I could cry no more A snow goose had taken swans as kin Maybe we were both lost and mistaken Tending where a hole had opened And mothering what once was broken Nature has a way to fill a void I’ve seen it now, love can’t be destroyed
So I place these restless hands upon The brow of earth and salt and sun And call back all my straying swan When doors are closed don’t we all come To a stillness A temporary emptiness Till the fog lifts us out of limbo numb.
Snow goose and me we sat in the chasm A place so very few can fathom A place so very few can endure A place so very raw and pure Somewhere between lost and belonging Somewhere between end and beginning A place where time stops all the dinning Just long enough to cease our spinning,
The sea she took all of the tears I think I heard her answer ‘cheers!’ I’ll drink to that poor heart your purging A lesson clearly needed learning What victories come that don’t need earning? Fall into my arms and slippery fingers Out on the crags, love hear the singers That celebrate your eyes washed open Your shattering dreams and words unspoken Every drop of love you give is perfect Every chance you take is always worth it A good heart always takes a breaking’
Snow goose and me - We’re not mistaken
SOME GOLDEN WINTER
Some golden winter Will melt the artic shard In the heart of your heart. The one your young strong lion chest Learned to grow softly around Like a willowy vine and be brave.
Some molten lava sky Will sink in the cracks Of that petrified muscle And fill it again Full, round and warm. Till no more being strong is needed Or rewarding with applauded accolades and steely medals your walking the good road alone.
No longer will the teeth That fit the wound Call endlessly to your door. New creatures instead will arrive. Strangely unknown and strangely familiar All of them your ally Chattering and barking and singing your very own songs back into your soul Each primal discordant note tearing down the doors between worlds With beating wings and paws.
And whosoever put the shard there Will also be the one who removes it Yet they may never even flinch so much as an eyelash On a pavement, armchair or woodland path somewhere very far away.
Some December diving gulls Will carry in their pen nib mouths every element you lost. Caw them back into each broken bone. Like gold sinew soldering. Sealing you back web tight. To hold more Only more Love.
And maybe no one will know what a reverie has befallen you Or notice that you tripped softly to your knees Under a luminous green tree And whispered Thankyou.
NIGHT ON THE SHORE Night on the shore Flags in wind leaven The trawlers swarm tethered to a squid ink tide Dappled lights merge on the tips Of desolate wind shelters Out on the horizon The cargo boats carry on regardless.
Our love is that horizon boat That needs no land to stay afloat It sails to where we cannot know A tide of warmth, an iceberg blow Nothing will take it down or up A mystery drank through broken sups.
A seagull murmers in the night Silent they fly like dayglo kites Against a moonless sky the lamps Have lit them up, have made them dance Our love is that white bird in black It always finds its own way back It always lights at every chance A moonlight ray or neon lance A dirty street or mountain side It has no preference of the ride
An invisible captain steers our oars He takes no bribes, can’t be implored Where this heart goes must be endured. The seagulls sing ‘ we can’t be cured’. A haunted whistle drives through the rails The sea roars on ..what do we know? What can we do? But set our sails
THE GIFT OF A THOUSAND STARS When we met, You said ‘cast overboard Your winged imaginings of love And be still’. I was scared and contained. Doubting and weary, Tired of my knowledge. So I clung tightly to my cases and cargo for to keep me afloat. But you said, ‘Come to me naked only Or you come to me not at all’.
We sailed into the roughs of the serpent writhing tides and you spoke not, but watched me disrobe. Each year of my life that had been Each story, image, concept and belief Each certainty, education and knowing Each stiff and brittle security and identity started to quake under your soft gaze. Your eyes reached deeper than all known and unknown universes and shone wider than the sun.
In the undertow, The boat spun further out of control I was lost And I lost all I was not. I begged you please help or make it stop And wondered how you could be so unaffected As to not come, To help steer the boat Or to ease my pain. I cried in a broken child’s despair, knelt down in a dying man’s surrendered sorrow And reached out to you in manifold tears that could never Quench the hungry tide.
It was then you came to me, kissed tenderly my forehead caressed softly within the circle of your arms you took the oars from my hands and threw them into the sea. I gasped and you said ‘Now let love take us’.
Ever since we met The tide has taken us further from the land Into a maelstrom of mystery. My heart has become an ecstatic dancing desert Both empty and bursting ripe Filled with flames and blossom touched and entered by you All the way Every way in.
How your kisses have become As fragrant moss, forests, sea, sky and sun.. all that could ever fruit in existence. Now my clever words have failed me. Destiny, the gift of a thousand stars. Love You are the lighthouse I was always heading home to.