SWALLOWS

 

FALCON

ALBATROSS

EAGLE

THE CHAINED

SWALLOWS

THE LONELY TRAVELLER

THE SPOTLIGHT

GONE

DEEP IN THE NIGHT

THERE IS A SILENCE.

 

FALCON

 

Splendid bird who fears the hawk

Though honeyed tounge makes lovers sigh

Though underneath your spell I walk

With you not my feelings fly.

 

Many men you have inspired

To write those words of beauty rare

But my soul instead is tied

To one more noble, one less fair.

 

Glowing sheen of colours bright

Opal flashes, red and green

You who greets dawns gentle light

With a voice so clear and clean

 

Instead I long to hear the sound

Call high and clear of majesty

Soul of steel to no one bound

Flight of falcon, wild and free.

 

Falcon dropping from the sky

Here is drawn the final line

And all birds cringe, I wonder why

For a moment you outshine

 

That bird of splendor who would sing

A melody in sweetest breath

You strike so swiftly, thus you win

Your victory in silent death.

 

You thrive on splendor and finesse

Embracing sky on folded wing

You trust such few, you love such less

What care have you for birds that sing?

 

ALBATROSS

 

Where the long beak breaks the water

Flying arcs on endless wings

Where the lonely bird has caught her

Glittering catch of scales and fins

The waves are rolling on forever

Where the seaspray meets the sky

Always silver sea, and never

Land, reflected in her eye.

 

She is fluid, she is motion

Where the cold sea touches air

Caught between the wind and ocean

For solidity she does not care.

Who would choose her life of roaming

Across the seas eternal scene?

Watching seaspray drifting, foaming

Watching fish that flit and gleam.

 

An ache inside her body tells her

When it's time to touch on land

Briefly stay to meet her lover

Where the bold wave meets the sand.

Eyes forever gazing seaward

Until the time she flies alone

Sweeping sideways, gliding forward

One with waves and winds low moan.

 

Her life's a journey uncompleted

Searching truths in waters deep

Until the day she is defeated

By the secrets that they keep

And falling gently to the water

Locked inside the oceans spell

Claimed at last by that which taught her

The ocean guards her secrets well.

 

EAGLE

 

I was born in the mountains

The wind rocked my body to sleep

The stony heights and ramparts

And the winding gullies deep

Were everything I knew of

And I knew their secrets well

Each peak knew the touch of my talons

Each rock had its story to tell.

 

My far-seeing eyes searched the shadows

My wings felt the touch of the sun

My voice held the pride of my freedom

My soul and the mountain were one.

 

Then the cold steel lay around me

And echoed the shape of my doom

I longed for the wild peaks around me

I longed for the winds tireless tune

A great eagle caged for your pleasure

Far from the realm of my prey

Did you care for the heart you had broken?

Could you see my life slipping away?

 

The time must have come when you saw it

For a sadness crept into your eyes

And you opened the door of my prison

And I flew as the free eagle flies.

 

It is for this fact I won't leave you

Although you have let me fly free

I want to be forever near you

I want you forever near me

Somehow in that moment you freed me

From the chains I had worn at the start

You gave back the life to my body

And captured more surely my heart.

 

THE CHAINED

 

Silken the shimmering

Galloping, glimmering

Tossing the breaths up

Into the breezes

One is the winner

Golden the glimmer

Quickly the gold cup

The jockeys hand seizes.

 

As I watch in the background

Heraing the old sound

The hoofbeats, the heartbeat

Of turf-covered track

Heat seems to swim round

Hazing the far ground

I feel the heat

and the man on my back.

 

Racing the fleet band

Hearing the grandstand

Cheering the race

All sounds merging to one

Fast my legs streaching

Quick the ground fetching

My strides. Breakneck pace

Of a horse taught to run!

 

What matters the cups gold

To one whose wild souls sold

To men who love money

And using my speed

Oh! Long for the freedom

Of wild horses streaming

Across the long, warm , sunlit

Plains where they feed!

 

But longing can't unchain

My life, and the deep pain

Of knowing some joy when

In foalhood - the start

Of a life filed with racing

And running, and chasing

The leaders to pass them

And breaking my heart!

 

SWALLOWS

 

Evening swallows flick and wheel

Inside the musty garage where I sit

Evening shadows softly steal

Across the cool lawn where insects flit

 

Shadows always steal across my mind

In these quiet moments when

I sit, and let the beauty of my find

Decorate the progress of my pen.

 

The sea lies dark beneath the gathering night

To further darken still my deeper mind

Sorrow passes through me like a flight

Of swallows which are not the earthly kind.

 

Still deeper, deeper, locked within it's spell

The shadows cloak me in their silky black

What time is it? I can hardly tell

As if the dark has stopped time in it's track.

 

The crickets chirp their serenade to night

Then give an encore to the rising moon

I feel so small, I wonder by what right

I sit and listen in upon their tune.

 

The scent of damp earth rises from the ground

The lonely cry of a hidden seabird rings

Across the beach, a primeval sound

While all about, the universe rocks and spins.

 

I gladly shed the garment of the night

Knowing that it can not keep me warm

And like a tree I reach towards the light

To be resurrected by the dawn.

 

THE LONELY TRAVELLER

 

Wild eyes which search the skies

Finding only clouds and loss

Wings that ache for lonely sky

Lonesome life of albatross.

Far from sight of rocks or grass

Far from cliffs or sand or earth

Like a ship lost on the seas

Longing for some distant berth.

 

A song awakens in her heart

In rippling winds the waters toss

And slowly, with her wings unsure

Landward flies the albatross.

 

Caught by instinct in her blood

Caught by need she cannot fight

Her bright desire burns like a flame

And heats the urgency of flight.

 

Back to that forgotten place

Where she was born, returns to breed

Until, her chick upon the soil

Her duty done, she turns to leave.

 

Oh! Lonely life of wandering bird

You are a spirit soaring by

Locked in that forgotten world

Somewhere between sea and sky.

 

THE SPOTLIGHT

 

She belongs on the edge of the ring

With the spotlights in her eyes

All that counts is the rising rhythm of dance

As her swift form flies.

 

And the music sweet of her quick hoofbeat

In time to the drumsticks tap

That echoes inside the huge bigtop

Holds an audience enrapt.

But her lifes near-spent in the crowded tent

She knows the dance too well

And men have sworn that her silvery form

Could dance through the gates of hell

And return unscathed by the burning fire

For she was so gentle and pure

But her days were gone for the sawdust now

She no longer felt the lure.

 

Now she dreams of pastures green

Where she frolicked as a foal

Before the circus, before the dance

Where life moved quiet and slow

 

A flowing stream where her mother drank

With cool and soothing mud

Before they sold her soul to the dance

And the music claimed her blood.

 

But dream she may - it will not be

For the circus owns her soul

And she'll long for the pastures of her dreams

But die in the spotlights glow.

 

GONE

 

All is lost - flight of stork

Arc of swift and cry of hawk

Song of whales beneath the sea

Wonderous, ancient, melody

All is gone but sound of surf

And ravens cry of dismal mirth.

 

Call of wild geese from the lake

Gone with fall of powdery flake

Swallows fled, darkness borne

Upon the seasons - lost and gone.

 

Shreik of owl in twilights glow

Shadows stealing over snow

Muffled sound of mooses hoof

Ancient, lonely howl of wolf

 

Lost among the scattered past

Are warmer nights which never last

Lush green pastures bright and warm

Fled with darkness - lost and gone.

 

DEEP IN THE NIGHT

 

Deep in the night when the beasts are born

Deep in the smothering dark

When the blinds are closed on the shadowy form

And the cicada climbs the bark

Where earthworms briefly touch the air

In the cool of the soft, moist night

I sat at peace in darkness where

The hawkmoths make their flight.

 

I waited quietly for a sound

As soft as the falling rain

And wrapped my idle fingers round

The edge of the window-frame.

I heard the earth breathe out with a sigh

And I listened, as still as a stone

I felt the weight of the empty sky

But mostly I felt alone.

 

Then I turned away from the dark outside

To the refuge of our bed

I emptied my cup of loneliness

And filled it with love instead.

 

THERE IS A SILENCE.

 

There are places were silence holds its own

Except for endless wind that shapes the sand

To cover up a legacy of bone

Where few small, twisted trees can make a stand.

 

There are places where the traffic roars and groans

Voices make the air pregnant with sounds,

Doors slam, music wafts and chatter drones

And the pulse of life forever rocks and pounds.

 

It is not in either place true life is found

But all the world between them is alive

With all of natures sweet and vibrant sound

Of forest, plain, river, nest and hive.

 

And here there is a music of a kind

That none may recognize until the time

That there is heard the engines roar and grind

That there is felt the city's smoke and grime.

 

The blade, the chain, the snap of living wood

The engine that piles the bodies high

The land laid bare where once the land was good,

And nothing now where trees once traced the sky.

 

There is a music that the city stole,

That none may recognize until the space

That there is felt an ache inside the soul

For trees and grass, and a way to end this chase.

 

And then, and only then can we be sure

Of our mistake, that in the city too

There is a silence deeper than before

That will remain no matter what we do.

 

Poetry Home - The Wolf Within - The Time of the Hawkmoth - Soulblade - Swallows

 

Copyright 2001 all rights reserved.