Daybreak: a sleeve of wind’s voice,
Gentle ululations, then a smear of gold

There’s a shuddering of sequined water
Reflecting ice-veined crags still frozen
In distress.

A living lens snaps the moment
All the way to its vanishing point.
Then, long, slow sepals, slippery
As syllables of a foreign language,
Transmute to a giant bloom,
A silk-red reflection falling upward,
Tumbling over pink-sheep clouds
Interrupting the stillness
Of this blue-grey universe.

There’s a ghost tree in the garden,
Spindly spine, non-branches,
Beginning as last year’s memory,
A stillness becoming a trembling
Of light, of movement,
Still frail but rallying
In its swaying aloneness.

The wind, nostalgic, strikes and dies
Upon the scant reflection of body
In the sky. What looks like leaving
Is an ongoingness of song,
A still-flowering of hope,
An unbreakable pattern
Of the art of renewal.

Against a fire bridge of sunrise,
Blue smoke still under the pines,
A humming bird clings to a sheet of sky,
Light-sensitive paper wings fragile
As spring ice. The eye, messenger
Of flash and shatter, stumbles on
This sudden angle photo.
The inexplicable takes form,
Arranging itself like a watercolour dawn
Opening in slow motion.
The conspirators of dark and cold
Are given short shrift in the moment
The world’s heart stops, touched
By the quick wing beat of April flight.

A small hole widening the giant picture,
One dominant trait diminished,
One altered gene, one missing link.
Iron tree leafless, perfect wing damaged,
Bumble bee caught in the chemistry of death,
Coocoo’s song silenced to a memory,
Acid bath dissolves in soil, lakes opaque
With filament.
Lives that touched and changed each day
Now pushed to the edges of void,
A fatal pause where “is” becomes “was”
And it’s suddenly too late to negotiate.

Could it be that a rose should follow
A tree inside his own haven,
For love, for protection?
I think of myself as a rose
But need to explain who I really am:
Softness, wetness held in a pellicle,
The moisture of my kiss enough
For both of us: my tree and me.

The quiet wilderness my heart
Might be violated, for I’m only
A small plant, holding all
My stillness within. I imagine
The warmth of being held
By those strong branches,
Shadowed in that leafy cool,
My petals protected, wood bark
Softening against my cheek.

Yes, you and I could grow together,
Each giving the other room
To be exactly who we are.

Thick, invisible threads, the spider holds the heart,
The butterfly attending to her flowers,
The bite of the bee – harsh gesture of tenderness,
Bat’s sensitive hearing gear pitched high,
Lizard’s tongue testing for vanilla air,
A love lark singing to a star.

But this is monkey love, dexterity
Of opposable thumbs, naughtiness
Of stolen kisses, sharp claws
Cutting the heart’s cords,
Hungry munching of the skin’s
Softest zones, push and pull
Of sentiments, sometimes upwards
Towards cotton clouds, sometimes
Downwards towards the earth’s
Rocky surface.

And always chattering nonsense,
Understood only by the two of us.

I’ve heard the muezzin’s call at dawn,
Church bells at noon, the gentle twang
Of singing bowls in temples,
The hushed chanting of mantras,
Meditation’s heavy silence.
I’ve heard the waves slapping the beach
Again and again, gull’s protesting.
I’ve heard the earth’s tectonic rumble,
Thunder’s base grumble, thick rain
Falling like window blinds, the wind’s
Subtle ghost whipping through helpless leaves.
I’ve heard magpie’s jabber and crows’ ***** discourse,
The dove’s soft evening prayer.  I’ve heard locusts’
Rhythmic rubbing of skinny stick legs, lizards
Scuttle in dusky corners, unseen things flap
Their wings in the dark. Even the soundless wings
Of butterflies, they say, can change the world.
I’ve heard mountain streams giggling, lazy rivers
Yawning, bubbles of love floating on wet kisses.
There’s no rivalry, no conflict, no violence here
Because all sounds have harmony in common.