Red
dust sings in the blood,
miles of star-slivered space
netting us back
as salmon in a fiery sea
floundering in little tin ships
to find our beginnings,
ancestral graves
in dried red beds,
our loneliness keen
as the genocide of Earth
inflames the obsession
to rejoin anything of source,
lost beauty and meaning,
an anthem we need to survive.
Where Green Hearts Die
You turn
away, become a dot
on my vanishing horizon,
I hear guitar notes, sad-sweet air-curve
through the never-reached trees seen
through slots in dusty workshops
where green hearts die.
Yet it is spring and all the flowers
must now unfold a destiny of pollen,
sprinkling even stingers of bees
with gold-dust,
coating the blade of time
with honeyed moments.
No scroll no song no note of Spanish guitar
can staunch the fading colour
from drained heart,
green promise blown to maiden-hair moss
on crumbling city stones.
Learning From Leaves
Leaves
wing to earth
like erring angels,
dripping their colours
blackly crimson, russet gold
to mingle with the green and greedy ground.
Taught by sunlight, hoarding wisdom,
they transmit all to mother tree
who now discards them.
They become refugees
on my stone path,
blowing towards the closed door
seeking sanctuary from the inevitable.
We pour our wisdom into books,
white leaves
to save on dusty shelves,
no wings, no colour,
no light to beam farewell.
We are flightless still,
orphans on the tree of life.
Translating Shadows
A
shadow-cat felined
across the bar of sunlight
on the old wood of the kitchen floor,
surprising me.
I set out a bowl of dew
sweet grass and new grain -
the shadow-cat lapped and chewed,
liquidly left,
no outline remained in the summer-cast oblong
appearing on the longest day
to affirm rule over stone and wood
storing Earth memories.
I am unpossessed of myself on this day
trying to translate shadows.
Light in fluctuations of shade
twines a language I must re-learn.
The meaning dazzles.
I have no cat.
