today the world keeps its secrets
shrouds it valley and hill in mist
leaving only the mountain tips
sunlit sentinels watching
for the turning of the light.
night vision
it is a long night drive
breath misting windows
in hard flung rain
headlights close in
illuminating only what i need
this bend
this tree
this cliff
this loose pebbled road edge
that drops into ravine
this bushbuck on light feet
leaving her spoor in the slip.
it is a long night drive
to fetch the girl child
to see the owl perched
on the yield sign
to yield to the soft darkness
of night.
the egrets
of course they would come
holding bits of night
in dark shadows under white wings
that whisper low along the road
sighing across the rooftops.
they will find the moon before it sets.
beyond the hilled horizon
where it has already plunged
orange and silent behind the trees,
they will find the moon beyond these hills
where vast ocean horizons
wait.
migrations
it is hard to look into the face
of love never returned
hard to look away
hard to know what of
herself she has yielded
what of herself
she has set aside
to be here. today
there are only half sentences
she leaves her fingers
to walk the story
across the counter
between us,
picking at the wood grain.
of all the things she has surrendered
to make a life for her children
to keep her children alive,
her home
her country
the red mountains of the escarpment
each and every person
she ever knew before,
it is the loss of her children’s love
that steals life from her.
it is them never knowing
that she loves them
that slowly steals her life.
it is ok, she said
turning her face away
when they are older
maybe they’ll know
what i did for them.
maybe the will know.
and god i hope
that’s true.
please let it be true.
one love
if i have made a god of you
i am sorry.
if i have built
alters and shrines
to the beauty of your being
only to sacrifice my
self at your feet,
i ask for pardon.
if i have worshiped
at the temple of you,
taken your name in vain
in the quiet of the night,
forgive me.
though divinity lives in us all
in its blinding epiphany of oneness
it is our earth bound humanity
the longing in limbs and gut
that binds us
blood and bone and heart.
sleeping under an open april sky
it was the noise
of the stars
that woke me
again and again
through the night
and though my mind
comprehends the silence
of those long journeys,
it was the noise
of the stars
shining loud
in the sky
that woke me
from the mothwing quiet
of sleep.
talking to the dead
he said it is quite simple
but really pay attention
and was speaking very quickly
as the dream was the length of the road
which was only the height of the mountain
and at the speed at which i was driving
was not very much time at all.
and i was just so happy
hadn’t seen him since he’d died
and was content with the small talk
the random bits of life,
but he said it was important
so really really listen –
and i was driving up the mountain
in the old white rattling conquest
and at the speed that i was traveling
there was not very much time at all.
he said the light is like cancer
and i winced
because that was what killed him
but he said no, listen closely
light in the world is like cancer
the way it moves in the body is the same.
it is the same.
if cancer is forgetting
on a deeply cellular level.
deep within the body
a cell forgetting its purpose,
living only to grow.
and as one forgotten cell
touches on another
it too forgets its purpose
until we have a mass of cells
feeding from the body
growing only for themselves
but still the body lives
until other nodes of forgetting
grow into their very own masses
bumping up against each other
until there is no space
for life.
i probably tried to make light of it
because i was afraid of the silence
and our words were casting a net
across the abyss between us
and i could not think
of anything to say,
but there was mist now
on the mountain
low flung bits of cloud
and i could not see the road
or how much time i had to dream
because we knew this time was borrowed
and the mountain only so high.
he said i must tell you about the light
and with that we were above the land
laced with nodes of brightness.
in a darkness darker that night
i saw these hills i am living
saw the nodes of light.
there was an awakening in the world
he said, though this had never been his language,
at a deeply cellular level
in every stone and bone and tree
the earth is remembering
why it ought to live.
we are merely cells
one kind of cell in the body of the earth
one kind of cell in the thrumming
complexity of the juicy aliveness of the earth.
it is our job to grow the light
become earth grown nodes of light
to speak it back into being
to remind the earth of its living
so that we too might live.
at the top of the mountain
the road widened to a view site –
low stone walls built from bits
of where we were
i stopped the car
he got out and closed the door
i have not seen him since.
it was important.
