To budding trees and bubbling birds.
and to the river's breathless gush.
I'll take the faerie stasis of
a winter landscape's snowy hush.

I've turned into the Queen of Snow.
a furnace could not kindle me-
A glacier rustling through my veins.
a crystal where my heart should be.

I brought this winter on myself.
here soundless snowflakes fill the air.
I watch them from my tower of ice.
and play my games of Solitaire.

I once lived just for Sturm und Drang.
for swirling leaves and driving rain.
But then I tired of autumn and.
the maelstrom raging in my brain.

One minute feasting with the Gods.
next, staring into the abyss.
And so I stopped and froze the clocks.
for I could stand no more of this.

I turned the fountains all to quartz.
lay pavé frost upon the floor.
Heaped piles of snow up to the eaves.
hung icy daggers from my door.

And so I pray the sun will not.
unlock the rivers from their sleep.-
They lead to far-off places and.
their waters are so very deep.

I cannot face the Springtime now.
In all its beauty and its pain.
The dove would lure me to the wood.
and I would have to live again.

That afternoon in Greece, I thought,
a sea-nymph hid in every cave,
That I might spy a Hydra or,
Poseidon on an emerald wave.

For here there was the kind of air,
that blew like perfume through the mind.
And like the lotus made you dream,
and want to leave the world behind.

There were so many things to see,
an infant I was not and yet,
I felt just like a child as I,
beheld the strange new alphabet.

I took a pomegranate, and
I slit the hard and sturdy rind,
As memories of a tale I'd read,
came flooding back into my mind.

And while  I held the bleeding fruit,
I put its rubies to my lips,
And thought of poor Persephone,
who ate the pomegranate pips.

I wondered if I,too,might end,
up in a palace underground,
With Hades for a husband as,
the shadows followed me around.

The golden hour had faded now,
and day was drawing to a close,
The rooftops and the gleaming domes,
were bathed in amethyst and rose.

And once the night-time had arrived,
I sat beneath a giant moon,
And stared up at the firmament,
where all the diamond stars were strewn.

The world became my Nursery,
the Moon a Pearl hung from a thread,
And comets were but glitter as,
they rustled softly overhead.

The constellations came to life,
like sparkling creatures of the air,
I saw the flash of Perseus' sword,
Medusa's wriggling serpent-hair.

And from my Cradle now I gazed,
around myself with childlike eyes,
And stared in breathless wonder as,
a shower of perseids lit the skies.

I turn the towering  wave to quartz
I pin the painted.butterfly
And freeze the arching rainbow in
the dark-room of my Inner Eye

For not in meadows or the wood
nor strolling 'neath the breathing bower
It is in memory that I
distill the attar of the flower

The living lily wilts and dies
the evening fades and sunsets pass
and instants flutter from my grasp
as gold dust through an hour glass

And while the tuberose Is sweet
its scent is sweeter still, I find,
When wandering hidden byways in
the sunken gardens of my mind

Here through the prism of my dreams
My daylight visions crystallise.
Like relics trawled from turbid seas
now all is clearer to my eyes.

I see a jungle in my dreams.
of treepie and of parakeet.
Where water-flowers are big as plates.
the mangoes pulpy, gold and sweet.

Here serpents shimmer in the grass.
and view their prey with gimlet eye.
While killer dragonflies swoop down.
like turquoise daggers from the sky.

And as the battle rages on.
the monkeys squawk, the wild cats growl.
And midst the orchids and the vines.
a panther goes upon the prowl.

Some Bible-reading people say.
the trees, the flowers the beasts, the brook.
Exploded into being like.
the pictures in a pop-up book.

And when they see a beast with jaw.
as fine-tuned as a workman's tool.
Chimeric-antlered stag, or bird.
with plume of pearl and eye of jewel.

They claim that all this beauty must.
be fruit of some celestial Mind
That, like a timepeice worked by cogs
their every facet was designed

But where is the All-Seeing Eye?
this jungle shows no sign of Him
Here many fish get swallowed whole
and deer dismantled limb from limb

And how can we believe that God
would let the aeons pass before
He made an insect or a flower
or wrought a single dinosaur?

Now when I dig into the ground
amidst the fossil and the bone
The creatures of the past are there
asleep within their world of stone

They tell a tale as precious as
a seam of gold inside a rock
For from their dark and dusty realms
the secrets of the Earth unlock

This back-stage world is not for me.
why spend in shade the fleeting hours..
While out there lies a sunlit stage.
where I can roam among the flowers?
So in the morning when I view.
the cold and leaden light of day..
My mind departs this drizzling isle..
and takes the road to Mandalay.
Now in the dawn the city looks,
with all the silver mist that shrouds..
The gold pagodas and the trees,
as if it floats among the clouds..
While fairy bluebirds fly about.
I feast on spiky dragon fruit.
And smell sweet frangipani trees.
that line the dusty, winding route.
Once ivory men in palanquins
were ferried round upon this street.
While natives toiled in paddy fields.
and sweated in the summer heat.
Those far off days when Englishmen.
would go out in the midday sun.
And wander 'round exploring jungles
with a handglass and a gun.
And though upon the Empire now.
the sun has well and truly set.
Those times I spent in Mandalay.
are ones that I cannot forget.
I still recall the stifling air
that in the day hung thick as musk.
And how the temples on the hill
would shimmer in the purple dusk!
And when I lie and dream at night
the temple bells they seem to say.
"Come you back you, British soldier
Come you back to Mandalay.

When I awake and see the fields
and flowers bathed in drops of dew
And all the world is basking in
the pearly lustre of the new

Then when the air is shimmering and
the winds are blowing from the south
With peaches so delectable
they melt like honey in my mouth

'Neath skies as blue and cloudless as
a vault of lapis lazuli
I think of sparkling oceans and
a thirst begins to grow in me

For I have dreams of setting off
aboard a giant sailing ship
And gliding down to Greece to see
the wood nymphs take their morning dip

A languid aura there like mist
weighs heavy on the flowers and trees
And every persimmon is sweet
as fruit of the Hesperides

Then on to Istanbul to see
the ruins in the scorching heat
And cool off 'midst the pillars in
the dripping cisterns neath the street

To sigh beside the Bosporous
beneath a giant yellow moon
And roar off down to Cappadocia
in a painted silk balloon

And where, if not to Persia when
the palace gardens are in bloom?
^Where fountain water tastes of rose
and where the air is like perfume

Then to the dunes of sifted gold
upon those parched Arabian lands
Where camels bear their loads of silk
across the sprawling desert sands

Where merchants trade in tea and jade
and pearls of finest orient
Enticing travellers to their tents
with jars of rich Arabian scent

And so I look towards the East
as yet another day is born
Before me, rising from the sea-
the gleaming palace of the Dawn

All fruit is sweet as marzipan
and seraphs carol just for me
Each brook sings like a silver lyre
and finches trill in every tree

Life is a cloth embossed with gold
and even through the blackest rains
No rainbow seems too hard to reach
for ichor courses through my veins

Those daedal thoughts flow thick and fast
like honey from mosaicked hive
The world's a Garden of Delights
I burst with joy to be alive

And now it starts, the skyward flight
slow at first then gath'ring pace
Just like a breathless fairground ride
that sends me whirling into space

And on my climb to crackling sun
I glimpse a gilded paradise
That sphere aswirl with cherubim
and full of riches without price

But like hot-headed Icarus
who thought that he would try his luck
I, too, fly straight towards the sun
and all my feathers come unstuck

Then rainbows smash like Roman glass
and splinters ****** all around
My head aswarm with twinkling stars
as floating castles hit the ground

That plump brocade I once called life
is torn asunder at the seams
Now all I wish to do is sleep
and quench my thirst in lethean streams.