extrapolate retaliation
to

age of suffering

end game

nil
all


MC2015

Neither this nor that
A perfect in-between

Spirit breath
Cosmic stance

The compression of a universe
Into one indivisible point

An expansion of a universe
into all points

A noun for oneness
Unanimous stillness

The experience
Of now


MChallis © 2015

Neither this nor that
A perfect in between
A single breath
The simplest stance
The compression of a universe
into one point
The expansion of a universe
into all points
A noun for oneness
An infinite stillness
An experience
of now.


                                                    Martin­ Challis 2014

where cedar creek
falls
love of river rock
stands

my gaze follows
one wayward drop
sent further
by the breeze

the story
of this place
is told by clear water rill, and
by a multitude of cicadas
who chorus their cacophony of daydreams


she sits
slightly away
I see the graceful bend of her back
the fall of her hair

and the delicate way
her feet
touch the water



MChallis © 2015

Of chapel bells
and after day’s dry summer wind
chimes angelic chorus
hangs in lasting configuration

My father’s rye-grass covered hills
tremble with a breeze keeper’s song
as he gathers up his grief

Mother folds away her weeping
folds away her dreams
until they are still

Mourners will soon move to chapel
to offer compassion
and glances from a distance

My brother
born yesterday, took no breath
from summer’s day

sang no breeze keeper’s song,
felt no dry summer’s wind,
yet heard
the farewell of bells

and dwelt there
harmonic
in tintinnabulation

in the sea

of night

each star

a flood

of light

and the

milky way

a riptide

of delight



Martinos @  2018

They have a ball here,
their backwardsing
their forwardsing;
the rainbow lorikeet, the pink galah, the dove.

Along and up and down
the ridge line of this hill
like an airway
a real high-way upon which they fly;
the joyful chattering squawks and squits
of sheer intent,
to move
quickly to the next excitement:
a blossom, a floral, a pod
a nectar.

And then again to
dash about,
to go together
to make this urgent
to make this such essential fun.

MChallis @ 2015

The colour of towels
hang in my house
down, like waterfall
from door-corners and window sills.

Some outside
some on wracks
All open mouthed
spread welcome.

I have paintings also. They are static.
The towels move around.
They’re the colours of angels
blessing a clothesline
or bedroom floor.

If I’m wet they dry me
if they’re wet I dry them
It’s a good arrangement.

They smile at me, and often
break into laughter
when I attempt folding
they think it’s a hoot
trying to fold away colour

for JR



at the grove’s edge

you meet them all, each one

dripping hurt, steel eyed

dusted and luminous



moss trod and lichen lipped

you go on, forgiving and seeking forgiveness.

looking back, you see that

none follow and alone you go

liminal in the margin



at the dipping point

each river pool clears of whispering ghosts

your trinkets, tokens, icons of memory

are placed in offering as expiation



each gesture a steady movement

each step up the mountain, lighter still

you are deep prayer moving steadily

toward foresight,  toward reclamation, toward flight



ascendant

you are golden haired



loved by the gods

you are sweet-breathed



as friend, father, brother, as joy-bringer

you are seminal and unbound





MCHALLIS © 2015

I have kissed you in many mouths

I have tasted you
but not found you
you’ve been elsewhere
the curl of your tongue
forming a ribbon in wind

the cut of your hair
tied into shapes
I could make with my hands

your voice
breezes in phrases
I’ve reached for
their possible echo

I have waited to bend you
into my smile, how
my mouth has made its reasons
for wanting the shape
of your name

and the marriage of words
I have learnt
just to speak of you

I have called for you
devoured air for you
devoured my name
and not found you

are you there friend
now or waiting
or passing as a ribbon in wind
curling slowly
to the tip
of my tongue



MChallis © 2014

The way each hill runs down
The way tree-lines suspend the turbulence

My father’s arms are in these hills
taking timber from the gully

The crest of his hat starts at the waterfall
his toes peep through lantana

His advice trickles into pools from the hollows;
as his boots peeled open, dry before the fire

Lizards bask like heat-curled nails in the sun,
billy smoke whispers its tale through the canopy

Through the slow step of a century
he has turned one-eyed squinting toward the sun

The scrape of sharpening-stone on an ancient scythe
sets my teeth on edge

The whistle to the bullock team calls me back
but it’s too late, my ears have gathered for another harvest

I'm already removed from his wilderness

MChallis © 2005

the crescent moon, bent
like Arjuna's bow
draws her ink-dark arrow across all heaven

she is first to intersect venus, then mars,
then on in one omniscient arc to trace
the centre of being

across skies, across eons
across all beginnings, endings,
all that is and was

long to outlast all human experience
and all that can be foreseen


MChallis © 2015

Sedge
Rush
Cereal
Turf

Blade
network
Insect
canopy

Viral
fibre
­Pattern
weaver

Earth
fabric
Meadow
aquifer

Wind
dancer
Tribal
m­ind

In the world
I can get busy
busy mind
getting distracted

away from where
the centre is
away from where
what matters

this poem
these poems
we share

these poets
saying hello to poetry
keep bringing me back

to what's essential
to belonging

MChallis © 2015

Wet winter on a beach
everything is grey

sky and wet sand

decorates the feet
of seagulls
skylarking
hauling left-rights through the gusts

Seaweeds embellish the foam
Bobbing their heads
up now and again for rescue

Each rush of wind seals an escape from
sense and
silence

In the maelstrom
I merge into obscurity
The sounds of my weakness unclear

Smooth nothing
black and white
paradox

not dangerous
not visible
not cloud mist or tears


MChallis © 2015

Weather’s coming up soon lad, talk is, three days,
no catch for a week then*

Connors’ folk slough to the Arms
in the shape of four or five,
a tawny pint floats the hour,
and by seven the place is alive.

My father now by the edge of the groyne
is a gaze half mast at the sea,
as he sails himself to the brink of an isle
and turns a yard-arm to the lee.

He sets on his oars the cataclysm of waves
he casts the wind at his hair,
swears salt is the sword in the taste of this life
and not what falls with a tear.

He'll treble a note in harmonica muse
and rustily **** a bone pipe,
spit saliva colder than frost on the grease
and never complain of the gripe.

Running the wind or roaring the cape
or rounding the sound of the wire
his name is the take of all seafarer kin;
the hearth, my heart and the fire.

My father the salt, the seafaring man
a wave in the seas as they glide
now found to the ocean,
a son to the sea
the son to the father; my guide.

for J

she has a heart of light
she will touch you
with her radiance

when you see this
you will realise
your own illumination

who is she?


Martinos @ 2017

A little empty that morning
she sat on the top step
of the verandah
sipping tea, sipping thought.
Three steps down to the pavement
squares of sandstone
lay in even handed rhythms;
flatly refusing to contour.

He’d moved away last week; big bloke, big smile
could clasp four pavers in one hand,
laid the lot inside ten days,
maybe a record, who could say.

Completed, the pavement was now empty of him,
no more scraping back, no more chipping out,
no more broad smiling hands
reaching for her cups of tea.

She missed this; as she missed the slightly flat renditions of
‘midnight oil’ and ‘fleetwood mac’, the **** of his straw hat
and the farewell call of... "see you sometime in the morning suze..."
(always at exactly 6.30 a.m.)

He was big on tea,
said he was glad
to meet someone who knew it
wasn’t merely the dis-colouration of milk.
She’d smile at that, he was right,
things like tea were best, given time to infuse.
She sipped her tea, sipped her thoughts
and the deeper taste that came with a little time.

they call us in

the women
who bring us

through the eye
the elder-wise mother
who is sister
daughter, lover, all

holding space apart
for us to enter

feminine shape
at the beginning

brightness resting in
and upon the earth

the tender choice

bringing light
to being

bringing cause


MChallis @ 2015

I would like to know you
More than I do

You are a gracious presence that in glimpses I have seen influence the mightiest egos to acquiesce

I stumble across you at times yet would know you more as a constant companion

I forget you often and when in the throes of reaction and defensiveness I catch myself in arrogance or in self righteousness or justification

This is followed by regret

How do I know you?
How do I find you in the moments when I am alone and embattled?
How do I find you in that first breath?
Of surrender




MChallis @ 2014

To my dead son or daughter;
I left you, let you pass,
kept you out

frozen: The mark of
the palmist foretelling five children,
I climb this hill now, with four at my side.

Your memory: A shadow on the distant range,
where eucalypt is  to its last;
the blue mountain.

Though I climb and four grow,
the wife that was then is now gone;
her grief and her echo.

Still I sense the soft pad of your call,
the tug of your passing,
and almost
the first breath of greeting.



*MChallis 2006

To my dead son or daughter
I left you
Let you pass
Kept you out

Frozen
The mark of
the palmist foretelling five children
I climb this hill now with four at my side

Your memory: A shadow on the distant range
where eucalyptus is to its last
the blue mountain

Though I climb and four grow
the wife that was then is now gone
her grief and her echo

Still I sense the soft pad of your call
the tug of your passing
and then almost
the first breath of greeting


MChallis © 2015

i love you i said
how is that she said
i just do i said
but why she said

why is the sky i said

why prove it she said
how can i i said
so you don’t she said
yes i do i said

then why is the sky she said

it just is i said
that’s what you say she said
just look at it i said
but it’s not there she said

yes it is i said
then look up she said
so i did
she was right
it had gone
and when i looked back
so had she


MChallis © 2015

complete insanity       and time ignoring the clock ticking       backwards
and forwards a child shunting a cart full of       blocks tumbling      down a cliff       face at the window  where I see a river running through   to the end of year specials where christmas    cake always made with old dough before baking should be let to        rise and fall of the capitalist       approach to sand mining in Kakadu and lead poisoning in tuna       fishing on the lake before breakfast slapping at mosquito’s exploited by greed overcoming the rest of us who are just as hungry and        waiting at the table where i’ve waited for       days has nothing to do       with me can we please take the attention off me        it’s all i ever       here and there is a way forward follow me this way        down children in the deep dark woods lived a little dwarf with a pocket full of thumbs cut from little boys who didn’t keep their noses clean and out of somebody       else’s business to come here today and talk to you about the theory of relative *******       which as you know was discovered by Captain Jimmy the cook or Captain courageous Columbus or Hugo weaving    its way into history before being    put out to pasture to grow fat in a paddock full of Nowegian Wood       isn’t it good that your father is coming home after all these years i’ve waited        so long  for the time to wait       for a cup of tea would be very nice       thankyou very much for coming ladies and       gentlemen please start your       engines of the new age       old methods of brewing       handed down to you on a platter and what do you do you throw it back in our faces       made of broken glass shattered by the news crowds stand outside the palace for days mourning the nations       lossst and found is this way sir broken feet repaired daily  broken hands twice daily  broken hearts sir that’s down the hallway second door on the left in the cliche department sir   thank you sir your time has come i’m sorry it had to end this way      look i’m sorry       enough of that sir       button up       there’s a good chop to the bottom of the neck       cuts air supply and results       instant lotteries are the way to think of the       future is what you make of it       son before you make any rash decisions       go and stand in the poet’s corner and fill in the forms you’ve been given make sure you answer every       question is you must understand the rules of inquisition        without question you must answer every question and make sure you complete every form you’ve been       given make very sure that       every form  is complete 
insanity.

MChallis © 2015

there is an intimacy
that in touching
I cannot touch

your colours linger
after brushwork soft
has long left canvas

your words
dear friends, are never parting
and never held, yet always, always
so deeply felt



MChallis @ 2015

On a back street in Mexico City meal sellers tend their stalls,
dark faced men feed from ceramic bowls,
menus are simple in black-board and chalk
everything is flavoured with chilli and
huddled shoulders reveal little small-talk.
Street lamps throw more shadow than light
and gas leaking from somewhere
feeds the air with an acrid scent.

I stop for a bowl of chilli-beans,
beside me and one over at the bar
a young man with matted hair and
heavy eyes unwraps a stained cloth,
takes a shard from a broken bottle and
neatly incises a small vein in his wrist.

He lets the blood drip evenly into a saucer
beside him and in the other hand holds what seems
to be a quill made from an eagle feather or some large winged bird.
Dipping the quill in the gathering blood he begins to write
in a leather bound book
on tawn-coloured hand made paper.

I watch every move.   No-one seems
to care or notice that he does this.
He writes on and on, scratches a word,
dips again -  the blood flows more slowly;
what has gathered seems sufficient,
he spits in the saucer takes a shot of clear liquid (probably tequilla) and adds it to the mixture,
I assume this is to stop it coagulating.

My meal and appetite have gone cold watching this process.
When the blood-ink is all but used
he folds the book away, wraps his wrist in a stained cloth and
walks into the street of shadow and meal sellers steam.

The stall holder notices me and approaches:
“Si signor this is Miguel the poet of the people.
He is coming many times to write this way.”
He smiles at me. I pay for the unfinished meal and he says,
“The poetry for the people is in his veins amigo,
is this not so in your country, are you also having such a poet?”

I leave him.   Return to my hotel room.
Take out portable type writer and clean white paper

And begin to write
in blood blacker than ink.


MChallis © 2015

Domino’s as their fingers,
the numbers
eating from the menu,
squares and rounds
enjoined but not sequential

In the Jazzy Cat Café
(tail curled in my mouth)

You weren't there
The sun had dried all the tomato’s,
I was calling you unanswered
missing the rythmn of your character, and
how you reached me with each impulsive smile
remembering earlier how...

we’d climbed eleven steps to your apartment,
and entered not really sure of where to next...

In another room;
(wooden floored)
was stored a blackboard menu,
a hostess said her welcome
in the way that Sultans sometimes spin

I asked for panini without the mayo
the waiter stirred the perrier
the singer sang without destination
and implied no journey

I heard her song and
watched her lips
missing
    all the ways

that you might sing


MChallis © 2015

If by fear
I am contracted

It is only the gentle wing
of forgiveness
in courage
and love
upon which,

I can again expand


MChallis © 2015

Past and future mirror one another.
Fixed at their crossing point
Is an infinite and uncombustible present:
Isness as an endless ocean.

An ocean made of words
Fluid words endlessly mobile, where
Anything can be described
Anything foretold.

In deep and shallow utterances
Live all the metaphors
In cycling currents
All allusions ebb and flow.

Some tales are down for deep remembering
Some swim fertile yet unborn,
All the while the ocean shares her stories
Allegoric and relentless as they wash ashore.


MChallis © 2015

It is the time for love
Of course it is
What a thing to say
When is it not that time?

Perhaps it is never more
Never has been more
Than now
Yet somehow we wait
Wait for what?

Wait for a higher authority?
When there is none to wait for
Wait for permission?
When it's there to give ourselves all along
Wait for someone else to go first?
When we are that someone.

Now more than ever
Is the time
For love, for
The telling
The giving
The living of it

Now

Morning
Soft light
And light sleeping

She sighs and lifts and sighs and falls
Her breath the gentleness of day beginning

I sit and watch her
more lovingly than a child could


MChallis © 2014

Morning

Soft light

And light sleeping

She sighs and lifts
and sighs and falls


Her breath
the gentleness of day beginning

I sit and watch her

more lovingly
than a child could

When you are where you are
Just there
And not elsewhere
Not spinning
Or toppling
But steady
Ever steady
In the breath of being
You are
Just now my darling
A universe at it's centre
A wondrous
Infinite now

When I am crippled by the fear
Of what others may think of me

The kind teacher speaks these words:

Your power lies within you.
Life endowed you eons ago.

Your work today is to know this deeply.

Your power does not lie in the minds of others - you do not need their approval for what you already posses.

As you practice today keep your attention on giving, on being generous without the conditionality of it being reciprocated.

In this moment now and in this breath you are free.

MChallis @ 2015

To a friend who shares coffee
you offer sugar,
                          love,
                                 and a biscuit.

Night trained like a metronome,
is a dark lounge astride your kitchen window.

And a cool beacon,
the fridge-light ******* her briefly with the lick of its wake.

Across smooth tiles
the pleasant stealth of bare-feet,
certain rapture
and seductive inclusion is
love like a biscuit half eaten.

For Allen*

Listen

Listen  oh heart
                           to the mystery, to
the breeze dancing trees, to the
silent ripples that cross the quiet lake

go within where they go, oh heart
go to the shore where wisdom awaits you
tread the circumference
honouring
                  honouring each discovered treasure
when you find them you will know and embrace them oh heart

they will feed you
they will be simple

MChallis @ 2015

investigation of light shift

spanish inquisition to a button

stigmata of machinery

clear engine chrome

flow-mouth wonder

wild nozzle-play

fascination thirst learning tide

inch at a time

mouth of splash

rill
river
lip
tongue
eye-flash and
silver

spooning the slurp-wet

fleet captains patrol, cry’s,  enough

squeals for more quenching      



MChallis @ 2015

In this room at four a.m. where the universe sometimes meets, I cram some thinking time into the stillness that does not occur at any other part of the day. A wall clock scratchily taps its one-tone metronome in a time signature discomforting to noisy thinkers.

My quiet contemplation is possessed with a version of unkindness, arising out of unsteady dreams. In the most recent frame; invading forces stay out of sight to threaten as the unknown enemy. We burn candles for those who plead the safety of our dwelling. But suspicion becomes our ally and neighbours are offered no solace.

I notice a small moth as it circles a candle avidly craving the feast of light. I think of those who have struggled with a near-death experience. I’m told the dying enter a beautiful light when called to begin passage from this world to the next. Does the small moth feel the same sense of awe as it prepares to feed the candle?

The lifeless screens of television and computer, (sometimes channeling the universe into this quiet room) hold their square black mouths agape, but offer nothing more than mute obedience. The only living pixel in this room is worshipped by the fervent wing of a moth: and is unaware of being a metaphor.

I hear at distance, the first bus for the morning passing by, it is mostly empty of the silent ones it will carry later in the day. I wonder how many of today’s travellers will have been awake at this time, pondering fate and future in the shelter of an urban meditation.

The early hours of the morning, I’m told, are when most passengers depart for the next world as they sip or gasp a last breath.

Slipping by and above me, some adventurous souls are carried by a hot-air balloon: the rushing light and sound of the gas-flame is a jet of life which heats and sustains the commercial moon as it drifts by in close orbit. The balloon then changes metaphor and mimics sunrise.

Perhaps moth and balloon and empty screens are pre-cursors for all that is to come today: all that is furtive, all that is futile, all that pretends omniscience, all that is agape, all that is sufficient for those of us who assume we will live on and on and on. And for those of us who repeat each day secure, content and satisfied: completely taken by all the fuss and noise of living for successfulness.


MChallis 2005/2014

'you only know what you've got when its gone'*
J Mitchell

at first learning
grief brings the un-returnable message
there is no un-reading
no un-learning
only unbearable immutable fact

in solitude there is no escape
in connection there is no solution

over time the seven stages are traversed
and while there can be no forgetting
with acquiescence
there can be acceptance
and with it
the gentle light of loss
to illuminate
the deepest gratitude


MChallis @ 2014

The boy who hangs his story from the bridge.
As if by fairy tale told minutely to a desperate lover.
Her tormented eyes
picturing this broken neck;
his story told in the lingering art of death.  Or

he who faces the train to Ferny Hills
and each commuter who remembers
that day’s monotony as bits of him
slapped against a carriage like
someone throwing wet fish.  Or

the pass-over traffic
grumbling at the fall of tragic demonstration - a
boy not welcomed anywhere except by the earth
that took him in with a kiss of bitumen.  Or

balanced on needle point, a
thousand thousand weights pressing death
into an arm embracing the TV-cable guide and
a torn photograph of Jennifer the mud wrestler.
And all this waste
sending little statistic waves of shock that don't anymore.

Gone to sleep like the boys who left us.
Early sleep. Early rise and forget the
sons who disappear in a magician’s finale.
The cloak of social history that accepts this.
The magic
abracadabra of disturbed unhappy youth.

Fire the candle
Crack the day
Light of life
Lift and sway

Up step up steep
Up there lit
Up to where
Archangels sit

Make ready song
Septets and airs
A vital throng
To catch our cares

Make ready step
Make ready light
Make peace within
Give love with might

Call an angel
One then two,
Call to bring
The world anew

Fire the candle
Crack the day
Bring love alive
Make love the way



Martinos © 2017

Fiona

a beach ball floated on the waves
it bobbed and rolled and went along
if i was fishing that day i would have seen it
- there on the beach  
and above
a hang glider left the grassy cliff
to swing his feet in time with
sea gulls who never tired of laughing,
he saw their white wings and the crests of the waves beneath him,
they were one and they were many
but there was only one beach ball
floating and bobbing along.     laughing
in many colours
at the fish in their sea
and the birds who looked like clouds

Angie

a happy face floats in the air
it has a curling ribbon tied to it
i think it is a balloon
a bright red balloon

Eliza

crystal jar - tight sealed lid
full - full as you can be
bursting sometimes with colourful buttons
of all sizes
they are names, and when you call them
they dance
like fireflies scattering into dark places
they light the world with campfires
we are warm,  apprehension runs away when you
sow these buttons  and
we're all well clothed
with garments so richly fastened

Cassim

a feather brushes the nose
of the giant
will he sneeze
or carry the bird?

Kat

excellent tennis is rare
I think of Wimbledon
the best of the best
the court divided
as are the spectators
they cheer, they sit in silence
they see you serve, they see you lob
they see you backhand a winner
they see the choice of the chosen
and when victorious
you acccept the trophy
and the defeated

Kat - again

ok you’re a bird
then fly
fly above the nets but
don’t stop for trees that
look like antennas
and when you pick through leaves on
the forest floor and
find the king of worms,
eat him slowly
he will feed you forever

Sheridan

the sharp sword cuts sweetly
it leaves a cool incision
knowledge is apprehended and
the red well flows over
fields are rich
strength knocking timbers
builds a house,
we live and eat well,
your house prospers
you are graceful
your love is light
and air is for breathing


MChallis © 2014
www.martinchallis.com

My father shouting at me
loud enough to wake my dead grandfather, the
red air is frightening     I try not to tremble,
it makes him worse,
he hits me with a strap -  but his anger soon passes

Tonight the moon seems old,
if it cries it can cry for me because
my sadness is deeper than tears and
the old man I will one day be    will remember this.

--

My mother,  happy in her freedom    swims naked in the bathroom
Swims an olympic record from the tap end
to the end where we keep the shampoo.

Beneath the waves she can't hear the
crashing and shouting from the next room.
The bathroom light is  turned out,
the moon fills the bath with its soft-milk.

--

Sad is my sister crying tears like wet feathers.
Crying for a pain she wants to, but can't feel. Her tears
are starved birds that never learn to fly.

--

My sister cries the guilt of an expert,
My mother tends herself with soft lotions,
My father, a helpless bystander to his own rage,
wears spectacles passed down by his father.

--

Tonight the moon is my quilt
Heart-beats are held and all is muffled
The rage is the sea
My skin milks the light now.




MChallis © 2014
www.martinchallis.com

Between grey sheeted sky, and
Grass green covered fields

Among dips and contours
Of clear rain water pools

Magpie and Currawong
Engage the other in carol and furtive call, in

Clear precise statements, morning reverie,
Tuneful trill and soulful segue, their

Full repertoire of robust conversation
Brings song, community and particular joy.


MChallis @ 2015

Walking down the hill
I thought about the view

Walking up the hill
I thought about the hill




MChallis © 2014

You fly high
in the night
seeing nothing below
or above
but the absence
and abundance
of light

Ancient wing;
stroke of genius,
deliberate cruelty,
you preen each red feather,

particular to the
last breath
before flight

MChallis © 2015

Rarely as I recall, in truth,
Did she speak expansively of herself
Or tell us stories of her young adventure
She reserved the detail and the admiration for others,
others who were remote to me, in interest and in caring,
I never knew, and always assumed she thought them more compelling or entertaining or greater than herself

And now I wish I’d asked her
And told her that this was for me
Furthest from the truth

Martinos @ 2018

music in the magic in the mystery
of softness in the footsteps
that your voice takes
to the place within my heart

brings a secret fascination
for intrigue's imagination
where enchantment chords a yearning
willing obstacles to part

but if the music is discordant
or I'm drowning with the tides
fear is overpowering
for the little one who hides

yet with childish laughter promising
the joy of trusting smiles
I wonder for the soft heart
set free from all denials

I wonder for the joy of things
as they bubble as they soar
and I wonder for the song of love
on the path of evermore

music in the magic in the mystery
of softness in the footsteps
that your voice takes
to the place within my heart

For Pamela*

True love is my companion
She guides me in delight
She whispers all the names for love
With soft attending might

True love is my companion
A swirling heart of one
A blaze of pure intention
An illuminating sun

True love is my companion
She dreams beyond my dreams
She is where the compass points
And all that's in between

She is sunlight bathing
A soothing gentle breeze
Water from the mountain
Harmony and ease

True love is my companion
As gentle as the dove
Within the heart's dominion
My companion true, is love

The smooth force of ****** skin
carresses and moulds me in stone.
I stretch to the contour
groin the hollow
nurtured and naked
for sacrifice.

Grave friend, grey faced
steady eyed friend
shallow edge
great heart
melt with heaviness the torsion
in each of these limbs.

I surrender time to the mother of you,
dry tenderer, assauger of guilt, you
who holds up day, and lets down night,
who bundles and sprawls me
like a rough shouldered parent.

I search for the place of no light in you,
close my eyes to your dreaming
seek out eons you’ve sloughed off
and deeper, how your weight pulls the gravity out of me,

I surrender
and can fall no more into the rocking
rocking lap of you;
mother how can I fold into you
how can I surrender
how can I add my breath to the sigh of you?





MChallis © 2005/2014