Look deep

Look deep, my friend, look deep,

When you don’t know who it is you look for.

When the questions of the night survive the darks slow end,

And patience speeds away in breathing change.

Look deep,

for now might be the time it can be found,

Deep amongst the childhood tales,

Woven in the half sung songs of youth,

Pushing to be heard in loss and gift,

Seeking and reaching,

Hiding well,

In the remembered gaze of the loved.

In pictures painted with couldn’t care less strokes,

That had no fear of crossing lines,

And bleeding out.

Listen deep to what once whispered happy ever after now,

And span and ran against imagined skies.

Look deep, my friend, look deep.

For She may still sing.

Loss

Loss changes but is,
I grieve that those I love now,
will never know you,
will not see me through you or,
know the you not left in me.

A place…

Ragged raw hills of history,

bathe the patterned troughs,

Where we sew lives together.

The now,

catching it’s breath,

under raised umbilical wires.

We cluster,

clinging to each other’s places.

Black and grey slashing movement,

through the gaps.

Ways made first by feet,

wood and finally metal.

Ordered land given shape by people long lost,

carved into purposeful pieces,

bound, walled and walked.

Names and stories that have lost meaning for us,

but still, now, our place.

Here we dig our holes and raise our temples.

Here we find rhythm,

living,

love,

home.

Here we find a place,

to dream of unfettered heights.

to talk to you

most days I find a space to talk to you,
I never quite find the right language to use though.
my words often pause in the depth of my mind,
as I wrestle with their appropriateness.
they shuffle on feet that don’t know where they stand,
like a stranger who has found themselves in a conversation,
they are not sure they have truly been invited in to.
do I even need to speak?
is silence enough?
is it too much?
without seeing your face it’s hard to know.
sometimes I feel the need to shout,
to wait to hear if there is an echo,
a bounce-back when I cry into the emptiness.
so sometimes I just sit,
sometimes I am still,
often I fight the urge to shift and resign,
I struggle not to impose upon the secret conversation,
and play in sand of my choosing,
or stare too long into the water at my own image.
my senses are wild beasts that run and roar,
as I become still they strain and pull,
for a moment I let them lead me,
and then return to the silence.
sometimes the silence speaks,
images painted,
melodies playing,
words form that are not mine,
and I listen.
and I listen.
most days I find a space to talk to you,
because some days you talk back.