The blacksmith works the iron ore
with tongs and hammer on anvil’s brow:
Within his forge’s fiery core
grows metal soft, with carbon endowed.

The coal turns grey, much like his beard
drawn out by age to wiry lace —
a silver mine that roughly rears
from his craggy quarry of a face.

In his chest, the same fire roars,
a molten furnace fueled by air
****** in by bellows, lungs engorged,
then exhaled in the bright sparks’ glare.

The chimney of his mind is filled
with sparks that dance, a glowing throng,
arising through his thoughts that thrill
to the rhythmic beat of his anvil’s song.

Reflected in his clouded eyes,
mixed in with soot and sweat and toil,
the steel sings out in joyous cries,
its notes ascending to a boil.

For though the years have dimmed his sight,
he sees through the smoke and flame. He knows
how he will find fulfilled delight —
when he with music his craft bestows.

In late fall the tree embarks
on the path to winter’s slumber —
as the dimming days slip short and dark —
of leafy weight she’s unencumbered.

There in the grooves of her linden bark
the worker ants prepare for the frost
that spreads across her lichen’s mark.
One pulls leaves over, a blanket soft

to keep them warm, a leafy tent.
It shields them from harsh winter’s maw,
which bites with brittle frozen vent
and breathes through branches bare and raw.

In the underground, her roots hold fast
to living soil that’s black as night.
They mirror icy wisp-clouds that grasp
the frosted skies’ pale starry light.

At last she slips into a dream
of bursting buds and birdsonged air
which softly waft in dewdrop streams
in answer to her winter’s prayer.

The copper dome
of this domus Dei
provides a home
where I may in silence stay.

Beyond its great doors,
a sea of candles like a hearth.
The cool marble floor
reflects the roof mosaic’s warmth.

In this vast space
my silence softly echoes
and in my vault vibrates
a secret libretto.

A-walking through a burial ground
as autumn’s bleak winds buffet me,
I hear plainchant that makes no sound
come from a church behind bare trees.

As I wade through seas of fallen leaves
that blanket tombs of fallen folk,
the whitewashed church’s lichened eaves
are loosely draped like a priestly cope.

Behind the church’s wooden door
comes silence sounding out a song.
Its words unsaid, no rigid score,
to the whirlwind this primal hymn belongs.

Well fortified by thick stone walls
a-quarried from the craggy heart
of this carved earth’s basalt halls,
this house still plays its sacred harp.

For though someday the sun will rise
above this temple’s gaping ruin,
its oaken rafters open to the skies,
there will go on the formless tune

whose notes compose creation’s tale
that’s told unwritten in lettered fire.
In my lungs I breathe the words
to join someday the hidden choir.

With that, this door did not lead inside
that bastion built for worshipping.
Her song instead had opened wide
my spirit for all this life will bring.

In the teardropped dew of golden hour
as dusk-sun dips below the edge,
an angel of bronze upon a stone bower
keeps watch as nighttime’s fingers stretch.

Across the spans of painted sky,
one by one bright sparks appear:
constellations form as portraits high,
a hunter, two bears, points on the sphere.

These starry creatures connect the dots,
parade across the firmament
and crown the angel deep in thought,
twelve stars, a wreathed encirclement.

The hunter wheels around the dome
of charcoal sky. His thrice-jeweled belt
shines out to mark him as he still roams
in pursuit of where scorpions dwelt.

Above him run two starry bears,
one’s tail-tip pointing to the north.
Though he lays his trapper‘s snares
the scorpion always hurries forth.

The angel watches the hunt go on
as it’s been since this our rock was made.
She hums her part in creation’s song
that set it all turning on time’s old lathe.

There in the shade by moonlight cast,
this angel smiles at the pageantry
of starry figures marching past
to mark her maker’s majesty.

It is not somewhere over the rainbow
beyond Mother's breath or
in the devices of ancient
or modern hands bereft

we touch it in our pathos
and empathy from
time to time
through a shallow fading
gravel bed
filtering a bitter water table perhaps

whilst the tender leaf of spring feels it
in the autumn of unconditional
acceptance of the inevitable
morning frost
cold relentless rains
and colourful leaves
falling to their death
in beauty

so far removed from our bipedal posturing
and upright positioning at the computer
desk knowing there is no mystery here
no wild cry in the night
only electronic and organic
bleeps and drones and

aw! there… I heard it again

a lost chord
a missing link
that the wild
creatures understand
of what we sometimes feel nearer in our shared limbic
brain seldom penetrated through
our domineering eyes planted firmly in front
of the gray dross from an eternal fire

we spend our given time on
this planet trying to douse when the rest
of creation knows the need for its
purification and leaps willingly into its
all-consuming heart as we
live in fear of the unknown
and of fear itself

keeping us estranged from the cosmic mysterium which provokes us to awaken
to the wondrous eternal
which will
alter our deluded consciousness
to see what has been seen through the
unknown eons to help us take to the fire

we only catch a whiff of in the twilight
of our hopes and selfless dreams
so we will rise through the
dry brown leaves of our once tender
green vision of an ever-changing universe
which whispers louder and louder in our darkness
until we cease our chatter and
learn to listen to the serene silence
of an eternal vibration heightening

morphing less organic much more
ethereal spiritual crawling further and further
from the pulse of the earth
as we shed thickened skin which
once replaced thin soft unprotected flesh
needing protection from extraneous
sources to cover what should have been

eternally naked bare to the elements
not limited to a frail carcass which
will ultimately be left behind as we
transform into our individual eternal temples to
join in worship with the rest of creation
to be the living offering
at the foot of the
eternal voice ineffable
not waiting to be obeyed
in mass procession but

as individual as one spark igniting
a plot of trees newly released as mystery
revealed ever so slightly in the wake of
the burial of earthbound mind steeped in
temporal ancient tradition fermented in
oak casks which were made to remain
and grow in their ****** state

as we hear distant yet distinct whispers of
the origin of our human calling above and beyond
Thoreau's distant drummer’s near silent tremors of the
most ancient rhythms now mostly echoes as we
march to
and follow our own drummer
leading the way back home

as we at times seem to distinctly
hear original rhythm's calling
as we try so earnestly to
respond like a dying sea
longing to once again sway
to the beckoning moon

often keeping in step
with our
own inner drummer who
is always trying to keep
time by asking

"are we prepared to give
in to what we will
inevitably meet in the end?"

The very last leaf of the fall
gave her level best and all
to shine as bright as she could be
and spite the winter’s hoary freeze.

There amongst the faded stems
of lavender that’s lost her lilac gems,
this leaf has nestled in a pose
that rivals summer’s crimson rose.

A leafy lantern of orange and gold
alit on silvered frosted ground a-cold
to blaze forth in her final victory:
An exit worthy of ancient histories.

In sleet and rain of Edinburgh
a cathedral rises from the deeps.
The salt of sea and old coal blur
veil her face in grey-cast sheets.

On her western pediment
within tympanum carved of stone
sits Christ triumphant and in judgement
where he calls us all to atone.

I stand before him, my head bowed
as I contemplate our shared guilt,
with mea culpas weighing on my brow
for the follies fallen man has built.

And so we’re burning Eden down
with flaming swords that we still wield
as once vast forests shrink and brown
and fallow lie once verdant fields.

Where trees once stood, smokestacks rear
their heads belching fumes up high
and in the deeps, the oceansphere’s
no more a garden for octopi.

For in this our earthly commonweal
that was a gift that’s given free
we prove that purgatory’s real
because we ourselves have made it be.

A whisper came from the carved face
to walk into this stony womb
where colored light and incense trace
a path to overcome the gloom:

Forgiveness for our many faults
comes when we change our ways.
There in this temple’s holy vault
I vow to fight Eden’s decay.

In Edinburgh I found Eden
in a vision of what can be.
For we are by no means beaten
and we can do it, you and me.