learning the craft of living
your lips must cherish silence

and when you have learnt a little
you will know how vast is your ignorance

but this knowledge is not lost
if you return often to silence

your interpretation of love
will manifest in your songs.

The silence of the surrounding hills
sweeps down to our small hamlet
to the shore and out to sea.
We live and move here in deep beauty
eyes are filled with natures bounty
one look is all that's needed. A
confirmation of the life of the soul.

.
On that western isle, bathed in gold-
Drenching sun, my only, giddy love,
Weaved a daisy chain and crowned
Herself, above the clouds and purple-
Violet seas, her grace, topping yellow-
Sparkled weeds, to flower, marching
In fealty, round her red, reign of crown,
Soon, after new mornings impromptu
Coronation, misty, bluer, eyes felt slow
Distant dread, the subtle, burning fate,
The inevitable nights of overthrowing
And fade of love's noble, corona light.

Were I shaper of dream, I would build
A grand labyrinthian castle of granite
Stone to contain that day—  I would
Conjure a moat, impervious to shifting
Time, the mute corruption of sorrows
Waking.

in scorched ground
severed roots remain
untethered tumbleweed
rides the thermal
on a heady rush to heaven
only to drop shattered
on the desolate highway
a once lush landscape
in full splendid flower
abundance freely given
but for one desire
do not let me die
for lack of water

I heard a man putting ladders up outside
Probably to clean the gutters
He suddenly appeared at my window
"Hello" he said
"I'm Father Christmas
I'm just practising"

I met my neighbour ths morning so I asked him how he was.

Oh fine, yes we're fine thank you. And how are you both?

I said you should go to Specsavers mate, there's only one of me.

we the daughters of sliced sunbeams
and those who chase gales in between
the pasture gates and barbed fences behind
the silo--

who think there's nothing softer than the way
honey sounds drizzled on toast or daisy petals at the supermarket
the women of ferocious silences, standing before
dozens with trimmed smiles and deafening inner beauty

squeezing our fingers down barley stalks and sewing
the roots into our dresses, we've tried six ways to sunday
the rules, the book on being wanted, before realizing that anything
born out of self-indulgence wilts away
all the work we did to grow and plait our hair with vanilla,
dipped in sweet almond oil we had no idea
that pretending
could only get us
so


far.