[northern hemisphere: on a beach above the 50th latitude at the end of winter]

(Winter-export), the beach frosted by fingers of polar constellations. It’s too cold to walk without huddling, but we do it nonetheless, because we only have one more night together. Your frothy hydro-rhythm spears into pith, irradiance; I breathe again, deeply. (Thick lips; quick still-hunt.) I rivet fronds of dependence into the seams of your boreal palms, never planning to return the floating colony of barnacles I promised I’d throw back; you, never planning to catch the sun bored through salt spray, clasping crisp foreheads, stitching on glistered lips and froze-shut lashes. And on a day when you didn’t rise early enough, I was left out in the water until my chest was steeped deep in ice over the thought of losing you. (Glimmering isle); my hair disheveled in sea-foam. Annular light. You pushed me in, and I relented. My isotherm sent chthonically. But you, in your legendary mantle, adapted my eyes to see the light hidden deep within your belt; such pinks and fuchsias I have never seen before, suddenly inverted. At absolute velocity, I cut my foot on sea-glass, bleeding blueshift, aligning to the colours of the zenith. You take me back to the starry house and we struggle with your parallax, a nadir inseminated on the celestial pole. (Parsecs quaking.) You whisper, I’ll heal you. I’ll heal you, only if you let me. Only if… you let me…  Over and over and over until it’s as mundane as the crashing coast, and unrivaled, I concede to everything and wake up deep in redshift, the whole universe escaping, warmth-ribbons suffocating the abyss: without you, alone on the ecliptic at last. In the spring-sinking, you order me a silver sword, sharp in starlight; to remember you. You stand a guardian, beyond the sun, flinging tiny ice-hot rocks (freighting gemstones); King of the Heavens. I submerge myself into the bathic depths, skulking in aestival despair, as you trade the night for day. Little do you know, my resurgence is also in your hands.

[i watched Orion slip from view every night this spring. No doubt he’ll return next winter... it’s sad losing a friend like that, for so long]

Would you now go spitefully hating the sun
Or go viciously plundering pretty flower beds
Or go crushing underfoot, fall leaves in contempt
Or turn gently  into the fresh fold of snow?

Come, come, dear child, hold out thy hands
Let me gently embrace thy spindly frame
And divest thee of thy onerous cloak
For thou art at journey's end; thy vessel awaits repose.

If I told you which season you'd die in
Would you relent with ease, when the hour falls upon you?
Should you know I'm not as fearsome as most believe
Could you surrender the lent Light I must return?

You already know the answer without knowing
For it is not how you look, but how you look!
You no longer remember, it's been so long
So, I ask it plain: Would you really want to know?

You are not just a spoke on the wheel of Life
Which needs to, as the seasons, turn resolute
Yet you pass through them all, simultaneously
Save, your linear faculties confine your esoteric bridge.

Take joy in aestival airs, the apex of fruition
Springtime soil so easily squandered, bear in mind
Access  introspective glimpses with  hiemal hibernation
Autumnal foliage is but a screen, time to get real!

You cannot have the sunshine without the rain
Nor expect fine blossoms without fair travail
Seek thus the true bounty bedecked in full view
If you had but the seer's eyeless sight, dear guest.

As you travelled from one season to another
Did you live fully, even in between them?
Yes, the tiny labyrinth-passages you overlooked
Time to exact the price now run overdue.

Too attached you are to world and kin
For none of these, can you take with you
But beneficial acts and and good intent
Cosmic trick of genes is cecity delivered.

The one whose life you may regard so worthless
Retains a level which allows his soul to pass through
The eye of a needle, not measured in numbers
Hoist your soul on, tilt your core... I carry you home

So, come, wayworn traveller, hold out thy hands
Let me tenderly close thy brief visit here
And divest thee of thy onerous cloak, prithee
For thou art at journey's end; thy vessel awaits repose.



Star Toucher, 24 March 2013

Aestival

bright are January's skies
robust light poured
into antipodeal
atmospheres
azure blue
interspersed
occasionally
by slow moving
cotton ball cumulus
feeding into endless
cerulean horizons

the effulgent outer world
blows
into my inner pnuema
and heat rushes in
melting to puddles of wanting
my intended precept
of cool headedness

the fires of missing you
so blazingly perfervid
they strike envy
into Olympus Mons
molten heart
scorching every
living thing in vengeance

I am mapped internally
pointered
by embered markers
in all the hues of longing
which bleed in through
fevered *****

like a forest scorched
laid to barren hot dust
by racing bushfires
time hangs in the heat haze
begging for the quench
only found in your kiss
to soothe these
internal infernos

my eyes ache
through the dusty
miraged heat
straining
to fix you
in my sightlines

only then
will these raging fires
be subdued

J.C.

This is inspired by, and a direct 'bounce off' one of Crows poems here, 'Hibernal' (link below) that I absolutely loved.  Thank you Crow, for letting me take the liberty, of using yoir poem 'Hibernal' as a jumping off point for this one


https://hellopoetry.com/poem/3686581/hibernal/

...is coming!
Now,
Don't wear heavy clothing!

As each year passes down the line,
We fail to heed each warning sign,
Forever doomed to work this mine,
Enslaved by chains of our design.

The future lies ahead to find,
Alas our eyes are stricken blind,
No hope to leave the dark behind,
Caught in the maze within our mind.

As time wears on we all must tire,
Hands and heads both still perspire,
Each dream we hold lost in the fire,
Frustrated souls caught in the mire.

Once more we all must play the game,
As fingers point out who to blame,
Deflecting guilt at each new name,
With no remorse and without shame.

As shadows shift and faces change,
We think back to a time less strange,
Before life had to rearrange,
A fantasy we can't derange.

The days ahead are far from sure,
As words and deeds are seldom pure,
With age we still are not mature,
And luck will never be the cure.

The hibiscus is dying
bilked to the hungry maw
of a desert kobold.
Listen to the knell of loss;
screeing of mouse in crushing jaw,
tiny sparrow philistined to a
mammonism of white-
seizing cold and jet trails.
Desert nights mordant,
aestival qualms hurry to
obliterate green orange pink red -
promises of what this dry rock soil
longs for prays for dies for.
Greedy dust -
I suffer no greater blow
than this dead blossom.

You can keep your white-tipped wood
              if I can keep my springy stride
     You can keep your saccharine goods
                   if I can keep my aestival pride


You can keep your warm fireside
              if I can keep my smile
     You can keep your placid sleigh rides
                   if I can stay happy for a while