The dirt still knows you and me as it squirms under our toes, and the old bells up the steeple of the forgotten chapels resting behind the hills sing tarnished songs of friends we loved and lost.

Ancient rivers, our hide away, under our confidante, the shifting sky, our secrets lingering there still with faithful boulders that cushioned us.  

We were arms that cradled each other while we set to walk on a wire stretching from our innocence to our dreams against the gusting wind and blowing doubt.

At times we made it and saw storms retreat and run for cover, and other times we smile bruised and wounded grateful for the lessons we have learned.

Down by the river, where the world is hushed, and shadows draw sharp breaths and bite down ******* us with their gaze, you'll find me nailed to time awaiting your return before the dusk descends, I pray.

Make haste, find your way back to the place we’ve seen eternity, and where tomorrow talks to us. Our refuge where promises hang their eyes on us and spread their arms wide. There, we are orphans with no yesterdays. There where our hearts cut through tears. With our hands out we could
dream without end.

If you don’t find us there, friends lost in me, if yours knees still could, feel the wind, it’s still dappled with memories.

Watching the frozen water vapor,
Ice crystals, falling from the clouds,
Towards, the cold hard ground,
With a strong wind, blowing, in every direction,
Spinning them in circles, all around.
One of nature’s most beautiful sights,
As they arrive for their landing, so gently,
Never making a sound.
When the sun shines down, on everything,
Covered in white, it brings a hypnotizing, trance,
With it, in the air, everyone always stops,
Their day, taking a few minutes and stares.
A snowfall, slows the pace of life, for everyone,
To experience, enjoy, and see, as it covers, all
Generations, reminding us,
The most beautiful, wonderful feelings, in this life,
Come naturally, simple and free.


The original: Tom Maxwell © 02/17/2024 A.D.

who re-marrowed this hollow tree ?
thought themselves of mythology ?
processed death into the dying **** ?
blunt   blackened hope
           buttering up what god ?
                                   what mischief maker ?
: Loki the crow with his promethean nose ?

covering his crooked actions
                          the defiling of a life
  murderer
  a coward of failed coupling
congress    a night down the pub
    the gender polar pair collided
            sottish upon their union
genitals bragging through urgent gaps in clothing
but that urgency deflated
it muttered away
he felt baited
and
  humiliated    
             he committed to ******

crude amateur throttling
  a ***** sogged brick  
an indiscreet botch up
    and a stolen wheelbarrow  
        to ferry her away

'The Mourning Tree'
           despondently sifts for nourishment
its gummy combs of branches
  sashing particles  from the night solution
the tree ; a cavity
too verrucose and fleshy to whittle the winds
                                               or fife a tune
a rubbery craggle     foreign against the landscape
should   rather   make out its' habits
                  off the floor of a deep sea trench

roughing in the corpse
head first   down the gullet thirstily
skirts up and claustro
between spread limbs
to ***** puckle in the hollow tree
evicting the bird of Minerva
      ‘whoing’ into the charged sky
  blooded over
             the night blackens further
               brooding on the event

who re-marrowed this hollow tree ?
married themselves to a mythology ?
force fed life   engorged within deathly seed ?
upended crime     in lieu of a sacrifice
           he offered a glass of woman
               to oder the night
he strummed teasing fingers
      raked them humming
         through the heady resistance of the air
electric creeping warmth   over the skin
                        erecting the hairs
   museum silence
   an arena    as fraught equal    between magnets
       clouds cut the moon
      moon cut the eye
    sinful kiting to mend a link
ramblings kinked
he makes sparking incantations to the gods

one scatting madman
one corpse woman


that same bled night
where the furrowed fields
            meets natures disarray
children approach this woodland border             
children with empty baked bean tins
      that they joined with lengths of string
trying to reach out their ears
    extend their timid range
       to sprites, nymphs, pucks or faeries
an older kid strikes up a cigarette
one of the younger ones squats to ***
         and be mocked

one brave girl of ten years
  runs a tin and the line into the woods  
it jerks taunt after about thirty paces
she wedges it in a tree fork and runs back
the children crowd the receiver tin
spooking themselves
eavesdropping   
        upon the hollow wisdom of small gods
            that mask their shame in the dark

These fallen leaves
echo strange tragedies,
as roots rot, on the spot
and time’s fury does not
seem kind enough to stop.

Tiny green things, browning
and disintegrating,
as humans move to change
despite the desire to stay the same,
shedding memories like a lamb’s coat,
losing layers and layers to
our own frailty.
Mortality is the knife at our throat.

Fear is the thief of time,
and time is the rogue
who pilfers everything
we think we know or own.

The tree will go on but we won’t
leaves will come and go,
like the season’s melting snow
and all the rings inside the tree
will marks the passing of everything
including me.

nature is healing she said
i said, we both in the healing process.

When he move
Like cloud in the blue sky.

His tears are raining like acid rain.

Who wants to ruin everyone.

Because a divine soul became like ghost.

The **** of nature made him like this.

He was a hardworking farmer.

Used to work day and night,
to get two breads.

But the wrath of nature,
snatched him family from him.

Living with this broken heart,
committing suicide as a burden.

Today his move like cloud in the blue sky,
his tears are raining like rain,
he screaming loudly in the blue sky,
The spirit has aroused in him now,
divine soul became like ghost.

Many a time in subtle and other ways nature tried to warn us.
Spewing fire from mountain tops flooding the land, water rising in high waves from the ***** of the ocean.
Black plague it sent now a tiny virus.
Not a lesson have we learnt not a line understood.
While building tower of babel, it is said misunderstanding was sown in our midst, to stop us from our task.
We still build tower's that touch the clouds and dig deeper than the deepest valley.
Forgetting that simple living is the best.
Want not more than your hand can hold,
a bed to sleep a roof to protect from the cold, it was ment to be thus.
Greed and false pride got us here forgetting that all we need is 6 feet of space our final resting place.

rising up from wet lush soil
bursting with bright colors
fashions grown from tiny seeds
creating fields of flowers

thriving in the golden rays
each petal in perfect place
blooming with God's best design
enjoying nature's grace

wind rocking them to sleep
through night's solitary hours
they awaken just in time
to soak in April showers

I long to taste a sugar plum off the ****** tree,
walk in the field of golden grass just to feel.
I want to feel the sugar plum tree, high at stake and bright with sweet bumble nests.
We all talk about apple trees, but why not the plum tree?
Gracefully swaying it's branches in the summers light.
I long to taste a sugar plum, laced in sweet white crystals.
The juice flows through our mouths, fresh, cold, and sweet.
Deep colors from it's roots to it's leaves, we have brown, light purple to dark purple, which we call plum, green delight how beautiful it is in my sight. I want a sugar plum, to bite into it's fruitful dismay and lay on natures green bed, so soft, so gentle. Stare into the clouds watching them gently float by, a cool breeze of sweet air swishes amongst my earthly face as i fall asleep under the sugar plum tree.

A tremble in the stillness
Disturbs the reflecting glows
Presages a message from the gently
   disturbed surface,There is comedy in the tragic.
There is dignity in human shame.
There is irony in mundane normality.
We just have to find it.
That's how we'll make it through
A peaceful song upon my life.