We Too Can Fly

Oh, heron, how you spread your wings as you cast yourself as a sail

with greyish hues that fill

How you soar above the rust like an arrow released

true and sure

How you offer yourself to the world abundant,

clear in your intention in crisp blue skies

There is magic in your flight in your command

in your fluttering perch at the foot of the bend in your legs outstretched

eager and poised

Oh, how your head bows

comely, as it gazes upon the river’s mouth

content with its place in the world to remind us

we too can fly

All My Life I Have Been Restless

You look up, aching to float as the red kite does feathered against the white

What bounties has it come to offer?

A sense of restlessness

like smoke that hangs against the cold night

What is it you hope to seek when all is said and done? What is it you look for, deep within the light?

As you turn, so does the world so do the trials and errors

gaining momentum

growing bigger like black dogs gnarled and empty as ever

panting on baited leashes

taut enough to snap

I heard they came across the ocean looking just for you

you who are always restless

like the hermit crab who gleans across the shore’s bed looking for a new home, but see

there is only dirt and bones

First look and see yourself— What you look for is truth your truth

and when you find it build your temple upon it

take up roots in it

grow strong with it

and stronger still

Meanwhile the red kite still soars as restlessly as a floating sprite

Meanwhile the winds still blow and offer you to flight

Dales

Down boney paths, along rolling deep

And into emerald views

lies a world at rest, breathless

A patchwork quilt of auburn green

sewn along with hand-pitched walls

as shadows dance on a hilly canvas

from high-floating cirrus clouds

We’re merely visitors to this secret country

where much has been reaped and sowed

Tups graze upon your fertile soil

you give in deep repose

My only wish is to breathe you in and take you back with me

and so I return to draw every breath and count every dewdrop at my feet

The Tyne

I know nothing of this

but to see with my own eyes a monolith of deep blue

as sea and sky meet endlessly

The gulls that sweep across its sheets

puffed chests that guard the horizon:

I have been here my whole life

as the brume spreads on for eons

The sea itself, a gentle whisper of ebbs and flows

I see upon it a shimmering web,

a single fishing boat out near the horizon

on a gallant or careless mission,

you decide

The salted air clings to my nostrils and wakes within me a primitive beast

an echo that longs to be out in the tug and pull

an echo that sings back to me

You belong here in front of the sea as open as you

as deep as you

as hungry as you

It rises and falls with your every breath broken and glistening

carrying out and bringing in

the eagerness that comes at first light

to float like the fishing boat

on a quest towards your own catch.

Opal Blue

Ardently she sings in opal blue

tawny foxes

in stubble shrews

A whisper still

comes hurdling through

open tunnels, a burrowed sleuth

Nothing beating can ever keep

owlets ready

with gritted beaks

She drops swift as a knife

cutting through the coral light

her wings are spread

but not a sound

a scurried prey, for death is bound

To hear the silence that comes before

to catch its breath forever more

a tail does hang in snared-up fists

as eyes glow amber in wooded mists

Her head is turned she is quiet now

and drops the feast by owlets’ brows

her work is done, a holy sprite

as opal blue now paints the night

The Tide

Once I tried to seize the spindle

of ocean’s ebb and flow

held up by coral moon’s allure

a hymn called to me

The drift did sway and swept the tenor

which carried crashing spume

hard as I rowed,

I made no gain left stranded beyond the blue

The tide will crash and undertow

will take whatever it may please

I learned that day the grace of sailing and in the drift of things

To push against the mighty pull yields no reward or peace

Listen to the quietude

It will take you where you need

And when I stopped the ocean spoke “Everything is divine”

Your struggle ceases only when you stop pushing against the tide

The River of Gold

The air is cooled by the Douro

as it sweeps heavenly across my cheek

It’s August now

and my drink and forehead are beading

as the droplets consume each other gain speed and eventually

sink

There are voices in the distance raw and full of energy humming as if one being

Hooligans clamor to the dragon’s song as the streets fill with blue and white Ribbons pulse and drums beat along

another win and the city erupts

As I walk the cobbled roads uneven and worn

I see a busker, each more elaborate than the last

Fado sweeps the streets intricately always downhill towards the center inviting you in generously

just as I reach the ribeira

I am stopped

By boys jumping off the steely bridge brave and careless

testing their courage as they splash into the darkness below

For a moment all is lost

Then appearing with a sudden swell bobbing in and out of the cool

spider-like, scaling the banked walls

they return to their perch

eager to take flight again

Asking only for a euro in return to repeat the spectacle once more

and this is how their summers are spent

accumulating audacity in the river of gold

Póvoa

I return to the cobbled roads and unfamiliar faces

a town in which my story began my thread is frayed and yet

still part of the quilt

A man in the red tractor passes by twice a day on the incline that defeats most cars

as I look on from the porch side

Later in town, the bronzed Maria the revolutionist stands watching

We drink from chipped bowls at long tables of indistinct chatter

a sense of belonging slowly builds

In the distance the terracotta roofs break up the hillside green

shimmering like a toothy grin

in the midday sun

In the back seat, I watch as winding roads reach the sky

we stop only to palm a drink

from the freshwater springs

the mountains will wait eons for our eyes to gaze upon them

Burning eucalyptus fills

the air August fires,

stronger each day I

begin to dream in Portuguese

My father shifts gears

Jarring me awake

He turns back to me and says softly:

This is the heart of Portugal.

The Sun Shower

The sun came out

as the rain clung to the air

a bittersweet calm cascaded as the clouds parted

The opening filled the horizon

magpies warbled sun’s return

and I for one welcomed this change for it signaled in me a stirring

That my body no longer accepted its stationary position

a series of events that preordain movement

like a miller’s wheel

pushed along by the river’s current

Creating within it

an unstoppable creaking of cogs a call to action

a light

that complemented the weeping of the clouds and opened its beating heart towards me

And I, unaware of its power, became lifted by the rolling droplets and shifting lights

as white fire streamed from

a simple crack in the sky

Wild Dogs

I don’t pretend to be a dreamer but I can see its value from here

to long for a place of pure joy

like the quickened hooves of the water buffalo

Galloping endlessly towards their watering hole

the one they recognise

with its dusty plains and shallow basin

Where they have raised their calves

taught them the importance of strength in numbers

watched as the green collar

grew greener still around its edges

as the rains came to fill their refuge

All the while, the wild dogs circled waiting

feverish and hungry

As a dreamer often does waiting

to get to a place

they must commit to memory

float into its being

as they hum its chorus in their sleep

chest swelled and willing

All the while knowing out there

wild dogs wait

to pick them off

The Wood

There was a time

when I would spend hours upon hours

in the wood

Caked with different shades of yellowed leaves

Riverbeds inviting me to traverse into a space untouched

My blackened fingernails,

the smell of wet earth

Searching for the signs of life

A city underneath an upturned rock,

Fascinated by the resolve of these trivial creatures

Time stood still, as I reimagined countless tales with me as the protagonist

squelched patterns the only evidence of my stay

balancing on hollow logs

breathing clouds into the chilled afternoon

I often think about this transcendent world

tranquil and stoic

and hope one day to pass on the secrets of this mystic land to my children

so they too may spend countless hours

deciphering the hidden clockwork of the wood

The Shepherd’s Keep

Arms still waver from harvest’s work

bushels piled in endless rows

as I walk along the mountainside

clicking sheep following in tow

I amble back to the shepherd’s keep

the night draws in,

graceful and pink

resting now in front of the hearth

With supper balanced upon my weary knees

succumbing to the grasp of sleep

gaslight burned, flickering still

knowing the sunrise brings again

the enduring toil

And so I wake

and take my place

shy and beautiful

like a worker bee

I Haven’t Seen the Sun in Two Days

I wake again to eerie streets outside my windowpane

Opaque mists touch down to choke my view

As droplets hang in the air

I haven’t seen the sun in two days

craving its warmth upon my face

They say this is “God’s own country”

grey that bleeds from day to night

Though we all carry on through soaked coats

With steadfast conviction sunlight will return

Will the sky crack today?

Stoic in our regimen taking no notice

of the wet that lashes down

and feeds the pride of our countryside