Poetry

The last tier of petals has burst forth
Upon my life.
Now in steady time
And daily practice
They slowly reveal
The fecund jewel within.

The thorns of pleasure,
That once cut my hands
Have become just a forgotten fate –
A small price to pay
For the scent of unwritten lines;

Those same lines
That saw me through
Into the unclouded day
Of soul.

This tapestry on which we take flight,
Is woven with the hues of foes and friends.
For where is the day without the night,
A bitter start without some sweetened end?
Six billion jewels gleam with each their light:-
Blood red, tree green, sky blue and earthen gold.
We shine with no am not, and no am I,
As one heart, one mind, one flesh, one soul.

When you didn’t read
The words I wrote
You cut me.
But when you took
Your love away,
There was the blade
That killed me.

It’s late afternoon
And the vintner gives his prognosis
For my noble disease.
The vines need pruning;
I need to cut back to stimulate new growth,
He says.
There doesn’t feel anything noble about it.
It feels like weakness,
No longer able to endure
The snap of a winter soil,
Or trying once again to push my roots down deep.
It’s where the best flavour comes from;
The noble struggle, he says.
I wonder what growth is left.
The harvest has more character now,
Less acidity, he says
Less vigour, I think.
Maybe I should pull the whole crop out
And just retire,
Drink someone else’s craft till I’m gone.
But I know I can’t,
It’s the only joy I have left.

The wind is blowing
Through the thoughts in my mind
As I offer thanks to the child
Laughing inside.
He’s laughing at the soap bubbles
Bursting in the light,
At the fireflies glowing at night,
And at the flickering lamp
That I’m reading by.
But most of all,
He’s laughing with me,
Laughing at this self
I take so seriously.