Into this world
of ancient earthen homes
heated by fragrant native wood
comes gentle and silent snow.

Within the delicate fibers
of this newly formed heart
one tapestry is being woven.

Its indeterminate colors
barely visible, shimmer.

Longing, and loving
one presence, dancing closely
finding balance and resolution
in this sound, in this knowing
in shraddha.

You have to wake up

Democratic or not
Atheist or deciding

Male or female
You have to wake up.

You must.
By force.

No, this is not a question of belief
No, not one of freedom

You are free.
You have to wake up until

You die.

There's a candle burning nightly
In the window, on the right
The house has long been empty
But, the candle's there each night
The house in old and ancient
I'm sure it has tales it needs to tell
Like, why the candle's burning
And why the house won't sell

The candle shows up daily
As soon as dusk begins to fall
The drapes are drawn so closely
In each room along the hall
But, in that lonely window
Burns a candle all can see
It's been burning there each evening
Since nineteen forty three

They say the house is haunted
After all, the candle is a clue
Someone lights it nightly
The question asked is who?
The house has been abandoned
No one lives there any more
They say the last survivor
Left in nineteen forty four

The story is as follows
If I get my rumours straight
The house was built around
The year eighteen eighty eight
The family that did own it
When the candle came to light
Were wealthy, and reclusive
And they all kept out of sight

The story goes, their oldest son
Signed up and went to war
He was a pilot in the air force
He shot down 15 planes or more
He was shot down on a mission
But  his plane was never found
They never found the wreckage
Where it crashed into the ground

The candle started burning
The day the message came
It's always burning in the window
It's always lit, it's all the same
The candle shows when it is dusk
It goes out just past three
No one knows who lights it
There's no one there to see

Is the candle lit by spirits
Waiting for a missing son
Is it lit to help pass over
To make his journey done
No one knows the exact story
If the plane crashed and he died
But, even in the daylight
People don't pass by on this side

The house is an enigma
Is a ghost there waiting for
A son to come home to them
Marching through the old front door
All I know is that the candle
Has been lit for 60 years
And there's a ghost up there just waiting
Crying quiet , ghostly tears

How many mouths whispered silent prayer
And sat in these halls wishing for god.
How many lives were celebrated and mourned here.
Unions made and broken.
The family, the hearth, spirit, life and death.
All flowed through here.
Now it stands proud and open to the heavens.
Holding the glory of what has been and is now.

Stone upon stone,
Piece by piece until it was made
That church that castle of the soul
It stood, it stands, a monument to man, toil, sweat and reverence.
Time honours it, blesses it.
Now it is part with the land
As it was always.  

Do not look upon it for you may not see it's glory
And a shame to miss and pass by
and to not think what things happened here.
What joys and sadnesses,
What moments and sorrows it witnessed.
Do not pass by but do not look either
For we cannot imagine. To know
The stories it holds and the memories it keeps.

With windswept hair and time-scarred skin
I stand bleeding beneath the blazing sun
I open my heart and power seeps in
Blood turns to ash as I turn to the flame
Time stands still as the ages burn away
Feathers formed from unshed tears
Shield me as night turns to day
Wounds sustained while
Bound to my plight
Seared closed by
Ancient Light

Made in the shade of a weather-bent grave
Fly like the flames in a cave of an old age
Eye of the cliff side takes gaze at the blaze
A world burning as it’s turning like a half-flipped page

While the sage boils sage in attempt to re-engage
The memories of centuries as they fade into the daze
A gypsy drops spades, says that everything will change
Now the grass blades sway like waves and the moon is strange

Like a whisper before the war, a sigh before the slaughter
Mothers escape into mountains with their arms around their daughters
And the suns rise ready for the fight beside their fathers

And the gypsy woman lied, a pretty penny paid
For her to say that everything would change
Yet it stayed the same

(c) 2015

Beneath the woven moonlight
And the glistening lapidary against the sapphire eve
Like ice-flakes on a dark hood
For as great as my nearsighted eyes can see

With a cigarette in the driveway
And the feathers of those clouds falling down
My breath and the smoke runs away with the zephyr
And I’m alone again in this pretty how town

Without a sound
Waiting for you to come back around
Without a glance for the ground
Waiting for you to come back

Like the farmers wait for their flax
Or the women tend to the millions of moths
That sound like rain on the roofs
Or that sound like the crackling of my cigarette burning
Breaking the silence beneath the woven cocoon
Light of the white philtrum moon

It’s her and I and the clouds falling down
And just that single solitary sound
Waiting for you to come back around
Hoping you come back soon

(c) 2015

For it all began with grain and clay
In ancient lands so far away
And in turquoise mines for the laborers day
Where to whom a lovely goddess the men would pray
That now I can write this for you

Thanks to those earthen veins of minerals blue
And the flowing rivers and oceans too
Over which sailed ships rowed by the crew
To carry such jewels to you

Where the mouth and the sound of its word was your name
For when I was kissed by those lips I was never the same
My tongue licks like fingertips of shadows of flames
And if once I was a desert, you’ve given me rain

I grew like a tree whose leaves spread like a fan
Whose lines and grooves resembles that of a hand
And I draw long and curling lines on your skin
Paying no mind to an end once we begin

And it all began with grain and clay
In ancient lands so far away
And in turquoise mines for the laborers day
Where to whom a lovely goddess the men would pray
That now I can write this for you

(c) 2015