The sun beats down,
And heats tempers
Glaring in eyes
Boiling blood
The breeze rustles trees
And teases our sweaty labours
Until we find refuge in the shade,
Then work again

Craggy rocks gasping silently
Thrusting up small trees
With fluttering leaves,
And dust rising violently
Studded with dry bugs

Wild strawberries
Tediously small,
Hiding among the tall pink flowers
And shy butterflies,
Wink and flash sweet 'eat me' red
Under dappled flower shadows,
They burst on your tongue
Tasting like sunshine and honey lemon
Washing like a cool blue lake
In muggy air,
Leaving childish joy
And baby smiles
Then the memory of sweetness to linger,
Until you paw through the hot leaves
And tall pink flowers
And find another, tediously small,
And hold it in your eager fingers
Soft, and brighter than rubies
With juice fresh and sweet
Running down your chin and your
Scarlet fingers

The thin, slim, smooth-rough
Tall, tall with flecks of fluff
Sparse, pale, dark and tough
Dry, dead, but alive enough
Tree grows by the road

The slow, smooth, slick of ice
Runs down cold iron bars
Snapping cackling dry grass
Crunching under every step
Loosing momentum, shedding its vice
Freezing wet my fingertips
Electric cold, my fingers slip
Down the bar of ice
To meet the maker of its own device

The hard-packed gravel road in the woods
Winds and twists and meanders
And is lined on either side by sun-lit dusty branches
And thin twining trees with more leaves than trunk
Which turn into standing logs, tall and thin and dappled,
Branches high, dusky and shifting light,
Or a charred forest of once-was pointing out the sky
Or fields of soft baby pines in the sun,
Sometimes clearing to show
The sharp gentle curve of mountains
Rising green and falling blue,
Fuzzy edges of pine lining,
Slowly obscured again by one tree, then two
Then a small forest of thin trees
And dusty sunlit bushes
Lining a meandering, twisting, winding
Hard-packed gravel road in the woods

Long car trips
Crowded with junk
And cramping legs
Flashing light streaming through the window
Into the muggy car air,
A trapped fly banging on the glass,
Low rumbling like gravel thunder
And bursts of shaking
Rattling teeth and seatbelts
When you roll over stones
Wisps of vented air
Curling around your naked toes,
And sweaty, rumpled clothes.
Skin sticking to fake leather seats
The slight sifting sick in your belly
Sitting fat like a toad,
And hoping the stuff in the back
Isn't shaking or breaking apart
From the crunching washboard gravel,
And drowsy eyes, tired from endless trees
Slowly drift until you arrive in the dark

Mint tea and lazy mornings
Dust motes drifting
Sun slowly lifting
Cotton brain
Coffee stain..
Ready to go
(On the outside)

Gently I watch from the dark
Pushing up a thin tissue front
Into the harsh light.
It wavers in the breeze, yes,
But let's through some honeyed light
Enough to twine my fingers through
And pour into me with life
My sheild from the burning,
Men with claws scratch, boring holes
That burn before my tissue can close,
And a sore, stinging soul
But the dark will wash it away
With tears and hope,
Innocence before it opens its eyes
To the light.

Honeycomb mazes
And sweet honey hazes
Thickly sweet, mind glazes
Confused, smoke blazes
Making a home unconscious races
Falling asleep in honeyed cases
Trusting those honeyed faces
Gold drips away from honeyed places
And left with confined spaces
Wax rooms, so smooth
And no longer honeyed, but true.
*wake up