Wild goose,
you lifted your left leg
and shook the dust off!
——— + ———
Now that the gate stands rusted in its lock
we have to find another way around.
———+———
Fairy ring, tall and straight
on hilltop ledge
you leaned in and I out
and I took all the blows.
———+———
That frog you almost stomped on
in that dark lane
followed us home and ‘ribbeted’ all night!
———+———
Walk this way!
Come follow me.
The journey is long.
Walk with me.
You left … and I’m still waiting.
———+———
Smiling, you asked me to be your friend
and we knitted together something special
before you left the ends frayed!
———+———
Gnarled like arthritic hands
the trees twist black
with green moss and grey lichen
in an ugly caress.
———+———
Oily black boulders form a barrier
to the wind’s breath.
———+———
Strong ties, strong bonds
smother us in a pressing weight
where breath becomes shallow
and sometimes stops.
In this moment we shout,
‘breathe’ and as air fills us,
it’s pushed far to a diaphragm
in a repeated cycle.
———+———
In a place of solemn stones
listening to voices
speaking the strangers’ names
from quiet mouths
there began the stillness
arriving at this liminal line
this thin space without shadow
I kneel.
———+———
Stones breathe through the cracks
that open to a mouth
where breath is silent
but for the heave of a wave,
the push and creep and glide.
Hope dries in these stones
weathered by time and place
of tectonic crash, draw and shift.
New birth from molten seed that
pushes through crusts of golden grain
through rhythm of drum smashing,
and washing contours smooth
with veins of olive green and pomegranate red
dappled salty grey,
heaves from these sacred stones,
smooth with fissure blue
and cries out in the air:
‘I am the rock on which you stand.
I give you life, through death.’
———+———
Invading space with giant wing
seeking, soaring, looting look,
Black-bird bold and brave
bends right and left,
darting into tilt and turn,
White-tail rudder banks to port
mantle heaves with swiping swing
spiralling in thermal heat
is forced to flee -
soon to return.