HIGH TIME

A tide is rising high within,
Of a vast, reflective sea,
That hides with love,
Yet fast begins
To uncover eternity.

OLD WINE

I remember knowing

Warmth & desire,

Glowing embers

Of long distant fire,

To share a pillow,

Limbs entwined,

A new flavour

For an ancient wine,

As passion stirs

From banishment,

Wearing

Its ill-fitting coat

Of chastity,

Its wild obsession,

Shunned,

Its myopic vision,

Unwelcome,

Its choicest words

Best left unsaid,

Still unspoken

Inside the head,

Hoisted,

In their own

Eternal wondering,

Perhaps discretion

Is the better friend,

Without beginning,

Or pointless end.

ECLIPSE

Chased

By the shadow of a cloud,

A hair's breadth

From eclipse

By solid darkness,

Liquid gold,

Sweeps across

The vast field

Of time.

Her brush,

Eternity's horizon,

Her medium,

Light,

Framed,

Only

By this moment,

Love's workings

Unfold.

RUN OF THE MILL

Sails turning,

Wheels churning,
The mill complains,

Unaware
That its real yearning

Still remains,
To feel the will

Of water and air.

DUCKS & DRAKES

Chosen with care,

A rounded flatness,

Befit to spin,

These stones,

These words.

Set in motion,

Loosed,

To a brief,

Rhythmic flight,

A skip, a skid, a skim,

Bouncing out

From the shore,

Yet all too fast,

Only the footprints linger on,

An arrow-head

Of expanding rings,

Point toward the last,

Marking the place,

The moment of sinking,

As words that play

Upon our thinking,

Can only trip

Across the skin,

Until, all spent,

They drop within,

Beneath the superficial layer,

Heading down,

To bed of prayer.

MIRACLE

As a shell upon the ear
Close pressed will bring the sea,
Within my heart, so faint yet clear,
Is whispering to me
A voice in kind to silence near,
A zephyr stirring constantly,
As soft as only I may hear
Yet recognise with certainty.

Lucid, though no word be told,
Insistent as a drum,
The burden of its message holds
A distant, sacred sum,
Another region of my soul
Is calling me to home,
For it be one, yet not the whole
Of all it may become.

BREAKFAST

The unseen breakfast

Deep communion

Patience

A silken stillness

Worn by the cat

Hunger appeased

Spoon by spoon

Tea circling

A clock

Stakes out the silence.

THE GARDEN

Walking the garden of my mind,

Every moment,

Might I find

As a kite to fly,

Each wakeful one -

On currents, rising,

Kissed by the sun,

Gifts of warm possibility,

Pulling up playfully

Higher than high,

Tugging and lifted

Beyond to the sky,

Where today's but a whisper

Down in the trees,

Of wishes unfolding

Blown on by a breeze,

Where dreams can begin,

And reason descends

From along the sharp ridge

Where the garden ends.

BEHOLD

Where lies the beauty of a rose,

If not arising up in you?

And where the course a river flows

Beyond that source to know it true?

Then nature's art is none at all

Save we distill the greater part,

As music charms no vacant hall,

Thus, love fills an absent heart.

THE POINT

Tomorrow tries
To stare at me
With its unseeing eyes,
I am a threat still,
A predator
To be fooled yet again
By the blind roundels
Worn on its wings.
Yet, there it is,

Tomorrow,
Impaled,

By the fine points
Of the conditions it made,
The ludicrous dreams
It carried in its heart,
Pinned to the plump,
Dusty velvet
In a collector's drawer.
Those lifeless wings
Will fly no more,
Their promise

Broken yesterday.

BLASPHEMY

If we could glimpse that secret,

Then conjour up a name,

Approaching a likeness

To destiny's beam,

Before the prism splits apart,

That sole spring of diversity,

The unwritten prelude

To all liberty,

To each luxurious moment

Of fanciful denial,

Every conceit of the human heart,

Would we dare speak

That word of words,

Set amongst

All those we share,

And pretend our understanding?

PRECIOUS

Precious is unchanged by time,
One moment, or a thousand years,
Best left behind while wishing more,
And weeping still sheds precious tears.

MATRYOSHKA

Profound yet simple
Fractal cell,
Within, without
Each nesting shell,
I am one,
And one the same,
But answer to
Another name,
And wearing but
The thinnest veil,
Identity,
Disguised by scale,
I exist
As large or small,
As heart or home,
Throughout them all.

NONE OTHER

There is none other,
Sister, Brother,
Watching now
From out those eyes,
There is none other,
Father, Mother,
All of life
Within you lies,

And none who question
Find that name
In liberty
So unprescribed,
Yet blesséd are
To ask the same
In love
So vast and undenied,

There is none other,
Sister, Brother,
Watching now
From out those eyes,
There is none other,
Father, Mother,
All of life
Within you lies.

ARROWS

I have but one arrow left,
Unspent,
In its quiver,
The very same
That bristled with passions,
Some which flew at phantoms,
Falling wide and wild
To places unknown,
Others piercing their chosen mark,
But all of these,
I'm now outgrown,
Save this, the last,
Amuses me -
Though once buried
In that crowded place,
Biding for its time,
I can see
That all along,
Its target was already found,
And it shall stay
Upon my back
To never meet the bow,
For this new passion,
Happiness,
Is all I need to know.