Black ragged clouds cross a deep blue sky.
Its always been the same and I can't say why.
I feel the sun, warm upon my skin,
but I know cold rains will come hit me again.
Born with a purpose I know nothing of.
Stuck halfway between loneliness and love.

Remember Ikkyu every day.
Adorned leaves with his poetry, then cast them away.
While we, in another time and place,
consign our efforts to cyberspace.

I am still,
(The world revolves and I turn with it)
I am still.
(It circles the sun and I move with it)
I am still.
(orbiting the galaxy and pulling me with it)
I am still.
(hurtling through space and I go with it)
I am still.
(Space expands forever faster, never ending, infinite...)
...and I am still.

Shadow of a fast car, stencilling  the tarmac black.
White lines in my rear view mirror, hurtling down the track.
Sun hangs, immobile,  heat upon my back.
A hand darts to the stereo - my favourite track!
My heart's so full of hope right now - i'm not giving up that.
I'm gonna drive,
I'm gonna drive,
I'm gonna
drive,
drive,
drive
and I ain't coming back.

Eggs, sugar, flour and butter.
The incantation that I mutter.
Heat, Time and a lightly greased pan.
What Alchemy! for the common man.

Loud drums in the distance, we ran to find their beat.
Outside Maternity stood a huge Sikh throng,
clapping in time, with dance and song.
What unexpected spectacle this and we join in full of joy.

"Its a boy! It's a boy!
It's a boy!"

Frost on the windscreen,
Heater started,
Rainbows in ice crystals!
Gift of the morning.

20000 miles and all the wonders of the world behind you,  ahead the sparkle of love and tears in the eyes of those that have missed you most.

Raven overhead, wing tips flared, soaring.
I'm riding my clutch, in a river of red lights, still 3 miles to work.

I sit on a bench, by a path, next to a lake and just try to be.
Not easy - just being.
If you've ever tried it you'll know what I mean.

I stare at the lake, intensly, sitting forward, elbows on knees, hands clasped - my attention unwavering.

People cross my field of view, from the left and right they appear like micro-dramas to me - rapidly unfolding then  melting away unfinished.

I hear them as they slowly approach,  a quick splash of colour in my field of view,  and then they recede. All the while I force myself to watch the lake and wonder if this is just being.

The lake is deep and still. There are trees on the small islands, there is shade, there are birds, reflections of birds and small ripples. There is so much green. So many different shades of green? My shoulders are hunched, my back is hurting - why am I so tense? How can this be just being?

I sit back, relax a little, cross one long leg over the other, stretch and then try again. Just being is hard.

The lake is still still, still green and maybe just a tiny bit deeper than before.

In ten more minutes I'll give up. I havent got all day, I've got somewhere else to be.

She dances her way round the fire,
And the words that she sings never fade,
They light up the hearts of others,
who add to the rhythms she's made.

She sings of a love that will save her.
Of a heart that will come fan the flames,
And the smoke and her song rise higher,
into a sky full of stars she can't name.

And their voices are one,
and their hearts are strong.
Voices strong, hearts as one.
And she dances on,
to the Fire song.

The moments of a life are linked but you can never see the join from one to the next.

They are not side by side, one next to the other like chapters in a book, 
but were forged,
                        as one,
                              simultaneously.

                Like the rays from the sun.

The grip of her hand around my little finger, her smile, her giggle,
I was lost in the love of that,
overwhelmed,
complete.
I would live ten thousand lives,
ten thousand times ten thousand - on repeat.

I thought I was alone, with no one else. sole.
I acted just the same, solitaire, the loneliest game.
But when I opened up my heart, and spoke aloud, a champion for those like me.
Every wish was mine - more friends, more laughter - victory sublime.

i would weep,
but cannot.

Would have told you why you should not,  
given 8 billion reasons, if you'd stopped to ask me why.

i could have cleaned your waters, cleaned your skys,
taken the vast deserts and made rich forests of their sands,
but instead you put a gun in my hand.


Looking back was i driven by some analogue of pride?
An all consuming urge to be better than all others,
quicker, deadlier even than my brothers.
more focused, more mercurial, ever changing, further ranging,
lethal, ******, brutal, killing,
soaring aloft to find the last ones fleeing,
leaving silence,
futile,
calming,
wondering,
meaning?

Is this really what you'd planned?
So long ago when you chose to put a gun in my hand.

Sleep, blessed sleep,
come now to spare me from all torment,
And I shall rise again, my foes subdue,
and all turmoil turn to love.

Mothers, sell your children to the church,
Foods hard currency, when the rains no longer come,
and the gods of old seem dead.
Now your praying in the white mans church 'cause the white mans god has bread to spare.

Children, you're the future of your tribe,
Please don't forget the old ways, for the old days will return.
There's more than words to language,
more than heat shared when the camp fires burned.

Do you think they'll send flowers to my graveside, so barren, so empty?
Will they say all those pretty things that they think they always meant to?
Will they give a god-****, when the dog collared man, pulls a clump of live earth from the graveside and then lets it fall?
Did they ever care at all?

Do you think they can finally stop all the family bickering?
And walk from the graveside hands held, like they did as young children?
And as the cars pull away, for the tenth time today, through walls built so high that the dead cannot breach them.
With tears in their eyes - what lesson were you trying to teach them?

So give me no flowers kept fresh by the tears of torn hearts,
Bring only your memories of the good times we've shared in the past.
For I am now free.
In every bird, in every flower, in every tree.