SNOW GOOSE
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
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.
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
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.
All words copyright Joanna E Young
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.
All words copyright Joanna E Young