The world took a break

Traffic stilled, just the dark rope of empty roads stretching for miles

Birds sang in the trees

No planes flew

People didn't rest

They sat in their houses and  didn't sleep, no matter how calm the world outside the window

We worried and wished and waited for it all to be over

For the planet to wake up

So that we could go to bed

Hark to the winds of Autumn
Long dead voices raised in song
Saraband for the living
A choir for the dying
Eternal music of the ******
A fading year
Carried on the breeze

Do not cry for those who have gone
Make a better world for those who are to come.
Do not put your faith in shadows of the past
Step into the light and let them see you shine
Do not curse the broken time in which we live
Race both hands to mend the clock
Do not be scared of the future
Let the future be afraid instead
You have the power to change it
If you will but try

We are all dust.

Mere chaff blown on the hot winds of an African summer long ago,
when the world was fresh and humanity still sailed on clouds of air we soared above the baking earth and knew the freedom of the stars, not tethered to the ground in bonds of flesh and bone.

Dust we were and dust we will become again, in the end it's all the same.

Just dust!

To be a writer
Is to burn with words,
tiny living birds risen from our ash and dust, because we must.
We take a part of ourselves and give so that we can live and fly and fill the smoky amber coloured sky with wings,
although we know not why.

Everything bends to the singing wind

Frozen trees brittle and dark

Stark

Naked on hard and barren fields

All is sleeping

Resting in the cold

Fences crack

Rabbits nibble at freezing grass

Breaths frost the crystal air in hope of thaw

Silence rings

A cracking twig

Splits the purity a little

A pistol shot of noise

On a winter afternoon

Look at any window

lights without blinds

other peoples tables

snatched fragments of their lives

gone in a moment

forgotten

maybe they wonder all about you

in the reflection of your passing car

caught in the tail lights of a memory.

Let green grass cover you

A daisy covered cape of spring

One last growing living thing

A counterpane of flowers

To mark away the hours, months and  years

Until the tears run dry

On the earth in which you lie

Burn me
Bring down the heavens
Bathe me in milky light
Crushed pearls under our feet
Love me like the hurricane
you were
Our youth has flown
The tide has turned
Passion speaks eternal
A sounding voice to call all souls
Clarion song and tocsin bell
ring out for lovers