ALL IS SHIMMERING

We are the light,

We are the shimmering;

The myriad, tumbling colours

Of the Song of Life

Flow through us, around us.

So sing we,

And dance we,

Make we the roof

Of the Great Lodge

Ring with the music

Of our rainbows.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

BEACH ENCOUNTER

The beach was wide and flat today

Stretched out beneath the winter sun

As I walked across reflected scudding clouds

Towards the chattering waves and gulls

And suddenly I was not alone.

'Thank you' I said aloud 

'For the long years you have shadowed me'

At some times almost tangible,

And then again a merest wisp of presence

In a twilight birdsong, or the first star.

And as I speak

Into the light stretched overhead,

I am twelve years old, and we

Are pedaling uphill along a country lane.

I lead, but as my muscles strain

I feel the gentle reassuring pressure

Of your hand in the small of my back.

And now the wheels turn easily;

Father and child, uphill we go,

Two abreast,

Never a word needed,

To the crest of the hill.

As now, walking towards the sea,

Walking on an uphill stretch of life,

I feel that hand in the pressure of the breeze

At my back, and we are side by side again.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

BONSAI  !!

Tiny old man

Perched on his verandah,

Alone, weathered, shrunken,

Kimonoed in twilight,

Sipping Saki.

At his back the threadbare home;

Before him the tiny city yard.

Around him the evening hubbub

From beyond the high walls.

But his eyes,

His eyes are twinkling!

Silently

Across the yard

He watches his ancient cedar,

Sitting

In its earthen pot

Ten

Inches

Tall.

Suddenly he laughs

‘Ha!’

Spreads gnarled arms

Wide to the sky.

‘Even so!

We have both

Been cut back with care,

You and I, my friend.’

Raising his glass –

‘Whatever we lost,

The centre held true.

For I -

I am still a man,

And you -

You are still a tree!’

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

GROVE OF THE HEART

A grove I shall make

Out of the wildwood

And starseed,

From the light of heart

And dance of being,

A path shall I make

That runs between the worlds,

And in it shall dwell peace,

And laughter

To refresh my soul.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

GIFT STONE

I gathered this stone, as I walked alone

one soft, misty afternoon in a craggy cove

a river running wide across flat sands

and caves singing the song of the waves

thinking of my blessings

and the ones I love

In that place is the deep peace

of timeless ages, where

folk like you and me have

sat quietly watching the curling waves

rise up over rocks, and pull back

in endless rhythms of the

sun and moon and stars

In that place time stands still

in reverence of the beauty

that is the Earth

May this stone be a true gift to you

of the peace of this place of sea and sky

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

ROCK MOTHER

Laying on the belly of rock mother

I hear the song of her blood.

Telling of her people, the listeners

Receiving into themselves

The stories of millennia;

Recording in their solid cells

The slow melody of the earth

Eating itself.

She sings to me of a

Compost of time, turning,

Distilled into a jewel

On the rocky field of planets

And stars and dust,

Listening, listening.

Deep within the earth

I listen as she tells me

The blood song of my own kin;

Distilled into a fragile band

Among the creature tribes,

Carrying the fire of

Transmutation, transformation.

Dreaming new forms of old things

If only we can call Fear out

Look it in its compound eye

And love.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

WINTER SONG

Up in the smooth flanks of the sleeping hills

This January noontide is winter grey,

And the sky a grubby woollen blanket

Around the shivering land.

Up in the cwms and crags, great stone seats

Mark where a passing giant rested to survey the view,

Or the Old Man paused on some rampage,

And even the angels had a place to gather.

Boulders strewn across the hillsides like myths,

Watch, as I pass, scattered to perfection,

Yet in this shrinking light unreal as the

Glowing golden flames of gorse.

The buzzards are silent,

Hunched in hedgerow branches,

Gazing dully at the grey land,

Willing the sun to return with hooded eyes,

The sap to stir, before it is too late.

Yet deep beneath my feet

Among the praying roots of ancient circles,

The stones sing still. Their mighty canticle

Moves through the deeps of the land

Like a sonorous chorus of whales.

Here, within the ringing dark of deep caverns,

Where the worlds meet,

The bards come to listen, come to know.

Enthroned on seats of stone, hearing with spirit ears,

They mark out the songs of time.