Thistledown in prison sings:

Bright shines the summer sun,
Soft is the summer air;
Gayly the wood-birds sing,
Flowers are blooming fair.
But, deep in the dark, cold rock,
Sadly I dwell,
Longing for thee, dear friend,
Lily-Bell! Lily-Bell!

Lily-Bell replies:

Through sunlight and summer air
I have sought for thee long,
Guided by birds and flowers,
And now by thy song.

Thistledown! Thistledown!
O'er hill and dell
Hither to comfort thee
Comes Lily-Bell.

Awake! Awake! for the earliest gleam
Of golden sunlight shines
On the rippling waves, that brightly flow
Beneath the flowering vines.
Awake! Awake! for the low, sweet chant
Of the wild-birds' morning hymn
Comes floating by on the fragrant air,
Through the forest cool and dim;
Then spread each wing,
And work, and sing,
Through the long, bright sunny hours;
O'er the pleasant earth
We journey forth,
For a day among the flowers.

Awake! Awake! for the summer wind
Hath bidden the blossoms unclose,
Hath opened the violet's soft blue eye,
And awakened the sleeping rose.
And lightly they wave on their slender stems
Fragrant, and fresh, and fair,
Waiting for us, as we singing come
To gather our honey-dew there.
Then spread each wing,
And work, and sing,
Through the long, bright sunny hours;
O'er the pleasant earth
We journey forth,
For a day among the flowers.

The wild bee reels from bough to bough
With his furry coat and his gauzy wing,
Now in a lily-cup, and now
Setting a jacinth bell a-swing,
In his wandering;
Sit closer love:  it was here I trow
I made that vow,

Swore that two lives should be like one
As long as the sea-gull loved the sea,
As long as the sunflower sought the sun,—
It shall be, I said, for eternity
‘Twixt you and me!
Dear friend, those times are over and done;
Love’s web is spun.

Look upward where the poplar trees
Sway and sway in the summer air,
Here in the valley never a breeze
Scatters the thistledown, but there
Great winds blow fair
From the mighty murmuring mystical seas,
And the wave-lashed leas.

Look upward where the white gull screams,
What does it see that we do not see?
Is that a star? or the lamp that gleams
On some outward voyaging argosy,—
Ah! can it be
We have lived our lives in a land of dreams!
How sad it seems.

Sweet, there is nothing left to say
But this, that love is never lost,
Keen winter stabs the ******* of May
Whose crimson roses burst his frost,
Ships tempest-tossed
Will find a harbour in some bay,
And so we may.

And there is nothing left to do
But to kiss once again, and part,
Nay, there is nothing we should rue,
I have my beauty,—you your Art,
Nay, do not start,
One world was not enough for two
Like me and you.

'Bright shines the summer sun,
Soft is the summer air;
Gayly the wood-birds sing,
Flowers are blooming fair.

'But, deep in the dark, cold rock,
Sadly I dwell,
Longing for thee, dear friend,
Lily-Bell! Lily-Bell!'

'Through sunlight and summer air
I have sought for thee long,
Guided by birds and flowers,
And now by thy song.

'Thistledown! Thistledown!
O'er hill and dell
Hither to comfort thee
Comes Lily-Bell.'

And now, as Dawn rose from her couch beside Tithonus—harbinger of
light alike to mortals and immortals—the gods met in council and with
them, Jove the lord of thunder, who is their king. Thereon Minerva
began to tell them of the many sufferings of Ulysses, for she pitied
him away there in the house of the nymph Calypso.
  “Father Jove,” said she, “and all you other gods that live in
everlasting bliss, I hope there may never be such a thing as a kind
and well-disposed ruler any more, nor one who will govern equitably. I
hope they will be all henceforth cruel and unjust, for there is not
one of his subjects but has forgotten Ulysses, who ruled them as
though he were their father. There he is, lying in great pain in an
island where dwells the nymph Calypso, who will not let him go; and he
cannot get back to his own country, for he can find neither ships
nor sailors to take him over the sea. Furthermore, wicked people are
now trying to ****** his only son Telemachus, who is coming home
from Pylos and Lacedaemon, where he has been to see if he can get news
of his father.”
  “What, my dear, are you talking about?” replied her father, “did you
not send him there yourself, because you thought it would help Ulysses
to get home and punish the suitors? Besides, you are perfectly able to
protect Telemachus, and to see him safely home again, while the
suitors have to come hurry-skurrying back without having killed him.”
  When he had thus spoken, he said to his son Mercury, “Mercury, you
are our messenger, go therefore and tell Calypso we have decreed
that poor Ulysses is to return home. He is to be convoyed neither by
gods nor men, but after a perilous voyage of twenty days upon a raft
he is to reach fertile Scheria, the land of the Phaeacians, who are
near of kin to the gods, and will honour him as though he were one
of ourselves. They will send him in a ship to his own country, and
will give him more bronze and gold and raiment than he would have
brought back from Troy, if he had had had all his prize money and
had got home without disaster. This is how we have settled that he
shall return to his country and his friends.”
  Thus he spoke, and Mercury, guide and guardian, slayer of Argus, did
as he was told. Forthwith he bound on his glittering golden sandals
with which he could fly like the wind over land and sea. He took the
wand with which he seals men’s eyes in sleep or wakes them just as
he pleases, and flew holding it in his hand over Pieria; then he
swooped down through the firmament till he reached the level of the
sea, whose waves he skimmed like a cormorant that flies fishing
every hole and corner of the ocean, and drenching its thick plumage in
the spray. He flew and flew over many a weary wave, but when at last
he got to the island which was his journey’s end, he left the sea
and went on by land till he came to the cave where the nymph Calypso
lived.
  He found her at home. There was a large fire burning on the
hearth, and one could smell from far the fragrant reek of burning
cedar and sandal wood. As for herself, she was busy at her loom,
shooting her golden shuttle through the warp and singing
beautifully. Round her cave there was a thick wood of alder, poplar,
and sweet smelling cypress trees, wherein all kinds of great birds had
built their nests—owls, hawks, and chattering sea-crows that occupy
their business in the waters. A vine loaded with grapes was trained
and grew luxuriantly about the mouth of the cave; there were also four
running rills of water in channels cut pretty close together, and
turned hither and thither so as to irrigate the beds of violets and
luscious herbage over which they flowed. Even a god could not help
being charmed with such a lovely spot, so Mercury stood still and
looked at it; but when he had admired it sufficiently he went inside
the cave.
  Calypso knew him at once—for the gods all know each other, no
matter how far they live from one another—but Ulysses was not within;
he was on the sea-shore as usual, looking out upon the barren ocean
with tears in his eyes, groaning and breaking his heart for sorrow.
Calypso gave Mercury a seat and said: “Why have you come to see me,
Mercury—honoured, and ever welcome—for you do not visit me often?
Say what you want; I will do it for be you at once if I can, and if it
can be done at all; but come inside, and let me set refreshment before
you.
  As she spoke she drew a table loaded with ambrosia beside him and
mixed him some red nectar, so Mercury ate and drank till he had had
enough, and then said:
  “We are speaking god and goddess to one another, one another, and
you ask me why I have come here, and I will tell you truly as you
would have me do. Jove sent me; it was no doing of mine; who could
possibly want to come all this way over the sea where there are no
cities full of people to offer me sacrifices or choice hecatombs?
Nevertheless I had to come, for none of us other gods can cross
Jove, nor transgress his orders. He says that you have here the most
ill-starred of alf those who fought nine years before the city of King
Priam and sailed home in the tenth year after having sacked it. On
their way home they sinned against Minerva, who raised both wind and
waves against them, so that all his brave companions perished, and
he alone was carried hither by wind and tide. Jove says that you are
to let this by man go at once, for it is decreed that he shall not
perish here, far from his own people, but shall return to his house
and country and see his friends again.”
  Calypso trembled with rage when she heard this, “You gods,” she
exclaimed, to be ashamed of yourselves. You are always jealous and
hate seeing a goddess take a fancy to a mortal man, and live with
him in open matrimony. So when rosy-fingered Dawn made love to
Orion, you precious gods were all of you furious till Diana went and
killed him in Ortygia. So again when Ceres fell in love with Iasion,
and yielded to him in a thrice ploughed fallow field, Jove came to
hear of it before so long and killed Iasion with his thunder-bolts.
And now you are angry with me too because I have a man here. I found
the poor creature sitting all alone astride of a keel, for Jove had
struck his ship with lightning and sunk it in mid ocean, so that all
his crew were drowned, while he himself was driven by wind and waves
on to my island. I got fond of him and cherished him, and had set my
heart on making him immortal, so that he should never grow old all his
days; still I cannot cross Jove, nor bring his counsels to nothing;
therefore, if he insists upon it, let the man go beyond the seas
again; but I cannot send him anywhere myself for I have neither
ships nor men who can take him. Nevertheless I will readily give him
such advice, in all good faith, as will be likely to bring him
safely to his own country.”
  “Then send him away,” said Mercury, “or Jove will be angry with
you and punish you”‘
  On this he took his leave, and Calypso went out to look for Ulysses,
for she had heard Jove’s message. She found him sitting upon the beach
with his eyes ever filled with tears, and dying of sheer
home-sickness; for he had got tired of Calypso, and though he was
forced to sleep with her in the cave by night, it was she, not he,
that would have it so. As for the day time, he spent it on the rocks
and on the sea-shore, weeping, crying aloud for his despair, and
always looking out upon the sea. Calypso then went close up to him
said:
  “My poor fellow, you shall not stay here grieving and fretting
your life out any longer. I am going to send you away of my own free
will; so go, cut some beams of wood, and make yourself a large raft
with an upper deck that it may carry you safely over the sea. I will
put bread, wine, and water on board to save you from starving. I
will also give you clothes, and will send you a fair wind to take
you home, if the gods in heaven so will it—for they know more about
these things, and can settle them better than I can.”
  Ulysses shuddered as he heard her. “Now goddess,” he answered,
“there is something behind all this; you cannot be really meaning to
help me home when you bid me do such a dreadful thing as put to sea on
a raft. Not even a well-found ship with a fair wind could venture on
such a distant voyage: nothing that you can say or do shall mage me go
on board a raft unless you first solemnly swear that you mean me no
mischief.”
  Calypso smiled at this and caressed him with her hand: “You know a
great deal,” said she, “but you are quite wrong here. May heaven above
and earth below be my witnesses, with the waters of the river Styx-
and this is the most solemn oath which a blessed god can take—that
I mean you no sort of harm, and am only advising you to do exactly
what I should do myself in your place. I am dealing with you quite
straightforwardly; my heart is not made of iron, and I am very sorry
for you.”
  When she had thus spoken she led the way rapidly before him, and
Ulysses followed in her steps; so the pair, goddess and man, went on
and on till they came to Calypso’s cave, where Ulysses took the seat
that Mercury had just left. Calypso set meat and drink before him of
the food that mortals eat; but her maids brought ambrosia and nectar
for herself, and they laid their hands on the good things that were
before them. When they had satisfied themselves with meat and drink,
Calypso spoke, saying:
  “Ulysses, noble son of Laertes, so you would start home to your
own land at once? Good luck go with you, but if you could only know
how much suffering is in store for you before you get back to your own
country, you would stay where you are, keep house along with me, and
let me make you immortal, no matter how anxious you may be to see this
wife of yours, of whom you are thinking all the time day after day;
yet I flatter myself that at am no whit less tall or well-looking than
she is, for it is not to be expected that a mortal woman should
compare in beauty with an immortal.”
  “Goddess,” replied Ulysses, “do not be angry with me about this. I
am quite aware that my wife Penelope is nothing like so tall or so
beautiful as yourself. She is only a woman, whereas you are an
immortal. Nevertheless, I want to get home, and can think of nothing
else. If some god wrecks me when I am on the sea, I will bear it and
make the best of it. I have had infinite trouble both by land and
sea already, so let this go with the rest.”
  Presently the sun set and it became dark, whereon the pair retired
into the inner part of the cave and went to bed.
  When the child of morning, rosy-fingered Dawn, appeared, Ulysses put
on his shirt and cloak, while the goddess wore a dress of a light
gossamer fabric, very fine and graceful, with a beautiful golden
girdle about her waist and a veil to cover her head. She at once set
herself to think how she could speed Ulysses on his way. So she gave
him a great bronze axe that suited his hands; it was sharpened on both
sides, and had a beautiful olive-wood handle fitted firmly on to it.
She also gave him a sharp adze, and then led the way to the far end of
the island where the largest trees grew—alder, poplar and pine,
that reached the sky—very dry and well seasoned, so as to sail
light for him in the water. Then, when she had shown him where the
best trees grew, Calypso went home, leaving him to cut them, which
he soon finished doing. He cut down twenty trees in all and adzed them
smooth, squaring them by rule in good workmanlike fashion. Meanwhile
Calypso came back with some augers, so he bored holes with them and
fitted the timbers together with bolts and rivets. He made the raft as
broad as a skilled shipwright makes the beam of a large vessel, and he
filed a deck on top of the ribs, and ran a gunwale all round it. He
also made a mast with a yard arm, and a rudder to steer with. He
fenced the raft all round with wicker hurdles as a protection
against the waves, and then he threw on a quantity of wood. By and
by Calypso brought him some linen to make the sails, and he made these
too, excellently, making them fast with braces and sheets. Last of
all, with the help of levers, he drew the raft down into the water.
  In four days he had completed the whole work, and on the fifth
Calypso sent him from the island after washing him and giving him some
clean clothes. She gave him a goat skin full of black wine, and
another larger one of water; she also gave him a wallet full of
provisions, and found him in much good meat. Moreover, she made the
wind fair and warm for him, and gladly did Ulysses spread his sail
before it, while he sat and guided the raft skilfully by means of
the rudder. He never closed his eyes, but kept them fixed on the
Pleiads, on late-setting Bootes, and on the Bear—which men also
call the wain, and which turns round and round where it is, facing
Orion, and alone never dipping into the stream of Oceanus—for Calypso
had told him to keep this to his left. Days seven and ten did he
sail over the sea, and on the eighteenth the dim outlines of the
mountains on the nearest part of the Phaeacian coast appeared,
rising like a shield on the horizon.
  But King Neptune, who was returning from the Ethiopians, caught
sight of Ulysses a long way off, from the mountains of the Solymi.
He could see him sailing upon the sea, and it made him very angry,
so he wagged his head and muttered to himself, saying, heavens, so the
gods have been changing their minds about Ulysses while I was away
in Ethiopia, and now he is close to the land of the Phaeacians,
where it is decreed that he shall escape from the calamities that have
befallen him. Still, he shall have plenty of hardship yet before he
has done with it.”
  Thereon he gathered his clouds together, grasped his trident,
stirred it round in the sea, and roused the rage of every wind that
blows till earth, sea, and sky were hidden in cloud, and night
sprang forth out of the heavens. Winds from East, South, North, and
West fell upon him all at the same time, and a tremendous sea got
up, so that Ulysses’ heart began to fail him. “Alas,” he said to
himself in his dismay, “what ever will become of me? I am afraid
Calypso was right when she said I should have trouble by sea before
I got back home. It is all coming true. How black is Jove making
heaven with his clouds, and what a sea the winds are raising from
every quarter at once. I am now safe to perish. Blest and thrice blest
were those Danaans who fell before Troy in the cause of the sons of
Atreus. Would that had been killed on the day when the Trojans were
pressing me so sorely about the dead body of Achilles, for then I
should have had due burial and the Achaeans would have honoured my
name; but now it seems that I shall come to a most pitiable end.”
  As he spoke a sea broke over him with such terrific fury that the
raft reeled again, and he was carried overboard a long way off. He let
go the helm, and the force of the hurricane was so great that it broke
the mast half way up, and both sail and yard went over into the sea.
For a long time Ulysses was under water, and it was all he could do to
rise to the surface again, for the clothes Calypso had given him
weighed him down; but at last he got his head above water and spat out
the bitter brine that was running down his face in streams. In spite
of all this, however, he did not lose sight of his raft, but swam as
fast as he could towards it, got hold of it, and climbed on board
again so as to escape drowning. The sea took the raft and tossed it
about as Autumn winds whirl thistledown round and round upon a road.
It was as though the South, North, East, and West winds were all
playing battledore and shuttlecock with it at once.
  When he was in this plight, Ino daughter of Cadmus, also called
Leucothea, saw him. She had formerly been a mere mortal, but had
been since raised to the rank of a marine goddess. Seeing in what
great distress Ulysses now was, she had compassion upon him, and,
rising like a sea-gull from the waves, took her seat upon the raft.
  “My poor good man,” said she, “why is Neptune so furiously angry
with you? He

In the mustardseed sun,
By full tilt river and switchback sea
  Where the cormorants scud,
In his house on stilts high among beaks
  And palavers of birds
This sandgrain day in the bent bay's grave
  He celebrates and spurns
His driftwood thirty-fifth wind turned age;
  Herons spire and spear.

  Under and round him go
Flounders, gulls, on their cold, dying trails,
  Doing what they are told,
Curlews aloud in the congered waves
  Work at their ways to death,
And the rhymer in the long tongued room,
  Who tolls his birthday bell,
Toils towards the ambush of his wounds;
  Herons, steeple stemmed, bless.

  In the thistledown fall,
He sings towards anguish; finches fly
  In the claw tracks of hawks
On a seizing sky; small fishes glide
  Through wynds and shells of drowned
Ship towns to pastures of otters. He
  In his slant, racking house
And the hewn coils of his trade perceives
  Herons walk in their shroud,

  The livelong river's robe
Of minnows wreathing around their prayer;
  And far at sea he knows,
Who slaves to his crouched, eternal end
  Under a serpent cloud,
Dolphins dive in their turnturtle dust,
  The rippled seals streak down
To **** and their own tide daubing blood
  Slides good in the sleek mouth.

  In a cavernous, swung
Wave's silence, wept white angelus knells.
  Thirty-five bells sing struck
On skull and scar where his loves lie wrecked,
  Steered by the falling stars.
And to-morrow weeps in a blind cage
  Terror will rage apart
Before chains break to a hammer flame
  And love unbolts the dark

  And freely he goes lost
In the unknown, famous light of great
  And fabulous, dear God.
Dark is a way and light is a place,
  Heaven that never was
Nor will be ever is always true,
  And, in that brambled void,
Plenty as blackberries in the woods
  The dead grow for His joy.

  There he might wander bare
With the spirits of the horseshoe bay
  Or the stars' seashore dead,
Marrow of eagles, the roots of whales
  And wishbones of wild geese,
With blessed, unborn God and His Ghost,
  And every soul His priest,
Gulled and chanter in young Heaven's fold
  Be at cloud quaking peace,

  But dark is a long way.
He, on the earth of the night, alone
  With all the living, prays,
Who knows the rocketing wind will blow
  The bones out of the hills,
And the scythed boulders bleed, and the last
  Rage shattered waters kick
Masts and fishes to the still quick starts,
  Faithlessly unto Him

  Who is the light of old
And air shaped Heaven where souls grow wild
  As horses in the foam:
Oh, let me midlife mourn by the shrined
  And druid herons' vows
The voyage to ruin I must run,
  Dawn ships clouted aground,
Yet, though I cry with tumbledown tongue,
  Count my blessings aloud:

  Four elements and five
Senses, and man a spirit in love
  Tangling through this spun slime
To his nimbus bell cool kingdom come
  And the lost, moonshine domes,
And the sea that hides his secret selves
  Deep in its black, base bones,
Lulling of spheres in the seashell flesh,
  And this last blessing most,

  That the closer I move
To death, one man through his sundered hulks,
  The louder the sun blooms
And the tusked, ramshackling sea exults;
  And every wave of the way
And gale I tackle, the whole world then,
  With more triumphant faith
That ever was since the world was said,
  Spins its morning of praise,

  I hear the bouncing hills
Grow larked and greener at berry brown
  Fall and the dew larks sing
Taller this thunderclap spring, and how
  More spanned with angles ride
The mansouled fiery islands! Oh,
  Holier then their eyes,
And my shining men no more alone
  As I sail out to die.

Puffs of thistledown
floating in the air.

Lovely lady
dark blue plums
and the tracery of lace.

'Toot' says a trumpet
to the cry from a clarinet.

Tinkling piano notes
flowing
lilting, rippling, fleeting
fleeing.

Bows, strings and violins.

Echoes of yesterday
fading into grey.

“She can’t be unhappy,” you said,
“The smiles are like stars in her eyes,
And her laugh is thistledown
Around her low replies.”
“Is she unhappy?” you said —
But who has ever known
Another’s heartbreak —
All he can know is his own;
And she seems hushed to me,
As hushed as though
Her heart were a hunter’s fire
Smothered in snow.

The thistledown’s flying, though the winds are all still,
On the green grass now lying, now mounting the hill,
The spring from the fountain now boils like a ***;
Through stones past the counting it bubbles red-hot.

The ground parched and cracked is like overbaked bread,
The greensward all wracked is, bents dried up and dead.
The fallow fields glitter like water indeed,
And gossamers twitter, flung from **** unto ****.

Hill-tops like hot iron glitter bright in the sun,
And the rivers we’re eying burn to gold as they run;
Burning hot is the ground, liquid gold is the air;
Whoever looks round sees Eternity there.

There lived, beneath a hanging leaf
A Ladybird called Annie
Who hated being female
And daily, cursed her *****
Her voice was deep and baleful
Her shoulders, broad and strong
By right, she was a Boybird
Just her genitals were wrong

Her family rejected her
She alive alone, ashamed
Until she met a Dragonfly
‘Salvation’ she proclaimed
For every bug and critter
When feeling below par
Would visit Doctor Dragonfly
In his empty pickle jar

Just maybe he could help her
With snip, a tuck and stitch
She’d not be Annie any more
Tomorrow, she’d be Mitch
She lay down on the table
And a beetle knocked her out
The doctor took his knife in hand
And bustled all about

With suture made of thistledown
And sap of pine for glue
He reassigned her gender
But the best that he could do
Was not a lady, not a man
But somewhere in between
And, as he used some aphid parts
The ***** were small and green

Annie never changed her name
It didn’t seem quite right
Her family still shunned her
She slept alone at night
The only insect in the field
With *****, ***** and *****
Even hungry birds avoided
Ladyboybird Annie

All the glitter and the baubles and the fake razzamataz,
Forced jollity and bonhomie berating me by turns;
The jostling and shoving in the shops and all that jazz,
The same unwanted present where the giver never learns;

And I will dream of summer, tidal ripples in the sand
An evening's float of thistledown adrift in hazy sky
The small face of a daisy, lying cool against my hand
The vast coastal horizon, where the seagulls swoop and fly.

You can keep your holly wreaths mourning your lack of taste
You can keep Sir Clifford, all the mistletoe and wine
You can stuff the turkey, lay the hangover to waste,
You can keep your sentimental dreams, leave me to mine...

Just let me dream of summer, how I miss its warming light;
The soothing breath of lavender, the grass beneath my feet;
The bright palette of verdant greens,  the shorter hours of night;
I'll deck the halls with roses, daffodils and meadowsweet.

The gloom that breathes upon me with these airs
Is like the drops which strike the traveller’s brow
Who knows not, darkling, if they bring him now
Fresh storm, or be old rain the covert bears.
Ah! bodes this hour some harvest of new tares,
Or hath but memory of the day whose plough
Sowed hunger once,— the night at length when thou,
O prayer found vain, didst fall from out my prayers?

How prickly were the growths which yet how smooth,
Along the hedgerows of this journey shed,
Lie by Time’s grace till night and sleep may soothe!
Even as the thistledown from pathsides dead
Gleaned by a girl in autumns of her youth,
Which one new year makes soft her marriage-bed.

Dancing on leaves of flowers.
Swimming down water so clear.
Sleeping in cracks of an oak-tree.
Dreaming of things so dear.

Clutching hands as we jump off a mountain.
Getting lost in a maze of love.
Watch the display as we’re kissing.
Flying high on the wings of a dove.

Hide-and-go seek in the forest.
Whispers of words in secrecy.
This is the world I’ve imagined.
Our world of pure fantasy.

Chasing after blueberry fairies.
Wearing their wings on our backs.
Swooping through thistledown fields.
Making up for the things you lack.

Building sandcastles by the river.
Drinking dew from a redrose leaf.
Cuddling at a warm, cozy fire.
Creating memories in which to believe.

Eating white cream and strawberries.
Laughing at elves in a tree.
This is the world I’ve imagined.
My world of pure fantasy.

Autumn in New Zealand is a masterpiece on canvas
Patternings of goldens and bright rose hips in their beds,
Copses of coniferous in deep and darkly avenues
To the brilliance of a country lane awash with leafy reds.
Chimney fires are smoking in the rural country cottages
The warming glow of lanterns in the windows as I pass,
A tantalising whiff of hot buttered scones is wafting
And somewhere in the distance I can hear a red deer bark.
Strolling by the lakeside in the early morning stillness
My breathing fogs before me in the chillness of the air,
Rowan trees glow scarlet and the naked ***** willow
Has shed her golden carpet on the emerald hillock there.
Rushes rattle softly in the mistyness of lowlands
Treeeferns in their glory of silver filagree,
Sparrows ruffle feathers to insulate the coolness
As wheeling flocks of starling mass to migrate to be free.
Gossamer as fairy dust the thistledown is floating
A harbinger of autumn leaves and freezing frost to come,
Those Coriollis forces are determining the changeling
Where the snowy days approaching means the Autumn tones are done.


Marshalg
27 April 2013
In rural Pukekohe.
New Zealand

Prayer Before Birth (1944) - Poem by Louis Macneice


I am not yet born; O hear me.
Let not the bloodsucking bat or the rat or the stoat or the
club-footed ghoul come near me.

I am not yet born, console me.
I fear that the human race may with tall walls wall me,
with strong drugs dope me, with wise lies lure me,
on black racks rack me, in blood-baths roll me.

I am not yet born; provide me
With water to dandle me, grass to grow for me, trees to talk
to me, sky to sing to me, birds and a white light
in the back of my mind to guide me.

I am not yet born; forgive me
For the sins that in me the world shall commit, my words
when they speak me, my thoughts when they think me,
my treason engendered by traitors beyond me,
my life when they ****** by means of my
hands, my death when they live me.

I am not yet born; rehearse me
In the parts I must play and the cues I must take when
old men lecture me, bureaucrats hector me, mountains
frown at me, lovers laugh at me, the white
waves call me to folly and the desert calls
me to doom and the beggar refuses
my gift and my children curse me.

I am not yet born; O hear me,
Let not the man who is beast or who thinks he is God
come near me.

I am not yet born; O fill me
With strength against those who would freeze my
humanity, would dragoon me into a lethal automaton,
would make me a cog in a machine, a thing with
one face, a thing, and against all those
who would dissipate my entirety, would
******* like thistledown hither and
thither or hither and thither
like water held in the
hands would spill me.

Let them not make me a stone and let them not spill me.
Otherwise **** me.



Louis Macneice

Dear muse, I penned this verse with feather quill,
To gently praise your beauty of renown,
My words to float aloft your gaze until,
They softly kiss your eyes like thistledown.

One single thought of you is all I need,
Pure beams of gold to light my dulling day,
A gorgeous wildflower peers from tangled ****,
And paints a splash of colour to my grey.

My lonely shadow drapes this em'rald shore,
With somber heart I yearn your close embrace,
Between us how wild stormy waters roar,
Such tempest I would brave to see your face.

Fond kisses blown on gentle winds your way,
Warm breezes seek wherein the fells you stray.

Would that I could gather your houses into my hand,
and like a sower scatter them in forest and meadow.
Would the valleys were your streets,
and the green paths your alleys,
that you might seek one another through vineyards,
and come with the fragrance of the earth in your garments.

But these things are not yet to be.

In their fear your forefathers gathered you too near together.
And that fear shall endure a little longer.
A little longer shall your city walls separate  your hearths
from your fields.

And tell me, people of OrphaIese, what have you in these houses?
And what is it you guard with fastened doors?
Have you peace, the quiet urge that reveals your power?
Have you remembrances..
the glimmering arches that span the summits of the mind?
Have you beauty, that leads the heart from things
fashioned of wood and stone to the holy mountain?
Tell me, have you these in your houses?
Or have you only comfort, and the lust for comfort,
that stealthy thing that enters the house a guest,

..and then becomes a host and then a master?

Ay, and it becomes a tamer,
and with hook and scourge makes puppets of your larger desires.
Though its hands are silken, its heart is of iron.
It lulls you to sleep
only to stand by your bed and jeer at the dignity of the flesh.
It makes mock of your sound senses,
and lays them in thistledown like fragile vessels.
Verily the lust for comfort murders the passion of the soul,
and then walks grinning in the funeral.

But you, children of space, you restless in rest,
you shall not be trapped nor tamed.
Your house shall be not an anchor but a mast.
It shall not be a glistening film that covers a wound,
but an eyelid that guards the eye.

You shall not fold your wings that you may pass through doors,
nor bend your heads that they strike not against a ceiling,
nor fear to breathe  lest walls should crack and fall down.
You shall not dwell in tombs made by the dead for the living.
And though of magnificence and splendor,
your house shall not hold your secret nor shelter your longing.

For that which is boundless in you
abides in the mansion of the sky, whose door is the morning mist,
and whose windows are the songs and the silences of night.

~ Khalil Gibran

Moments fly and phrases die
Like thistledown in breeze,
Creativeness evades
The minds capacity to seize.
Shadows of vast portraiture
Do beckon from within
Just to dissipate like gossamer
When almost penciled in.
Sequences of magnitude
Dissolve upon the lips
And laughter’s spontaneity dies
As vapoured humour slips.
To fancy pearls of rapture
Emanating from the brain
Would tax ones capacity
To ever fantasize for fame.
Frustrations of the frantic day
Those rushing points of call
Where interruptions, interrupt
In fleeting moments all,
Where focusing, just shatters
In the face of crass demand
Where inspiration’s stillborn babes
Are delivered cold to hand.
Tragic are the losses
To the mortified’s dry pen
And jubilantly, Satyrs claw
Creations’ prize …to them.

Marshalg
Victoria Park Tunnel
28 June 2010

I've chosen to spend my life worshiping it.
I used to lay in the sun for hours and let it make me know.
I could never tell anyone what it was, because there aren't words for it.
Sometimes I'd cry because I didn't have enough power over language to explain how I felt.
And then when I grew up, after I'd acquired all these words, I finally realized that I never would.
Joy is a solitary experience for me, like pain.
Because neither can be explained to someone else who hasn't felt MINE.
I miss the me who noticed, who had time to.
My childhood was nothing but a giant discovery of the world.
Good and bad.
And at some point I had the moment when I could have chosen to let the bad spoil the good.
But something, thank god, made me see that they needed each other.
And after that all my joy broke my heart it was so big.
I want the whole world, I want to be the same as it.
Always have. Always hurts, not to be quite close enough.
But the kind of hurt that drives you to do beautiful things.
I don't think I'll ever choose a faith.
My religion is that I am alive
And that the people I love are, fragile as thistledown on the wind, and we were all blown together to the same time and place.

There's a girl in my class named Nicole, who used to act just like every other popular girl.
She wore too much eyeliner and straightened her hair and I always heard the gossip.
I saw her for what she looked like, and I stayed away because I hate the drama that follows the "popular" people like smoke.
But then her father died.
Her mom was already dead, and her father died.
Now she calls herself Cosmic Bliss and wears jeans vests.
She doesn't straighten her hair,
And the other day she got up in front of the class and read her report
And it was all about seeing the world as a gift,
And helping others,
And finding yourself through nature.
I admire her.
She lost everything, and I remember for a long time she was broken.
She didn't look broken when she read that.
I suppose it's like any other faith- has its flaws.
But people are so resilient.
I found myself clapping for her in solidarity, because hey
If your parents die and your life ***** and you get beaten down,
If you want to make flower crowns and call yourself Cosmic Bliss
And preach peace and love and crystals to your peers even when they give you funny looks,
Do it.
I will cheer for you.
I wish I was friends with her.
People do what they have to to live.
Some people.

Thistle
You are so beautiful
Fierce in appearance
I can imagine
Stepping on you
With bare feet
Here and there
I can hear my screech
Your thorns
Thwarting an invasion
Imagining with delight
The love of a country
You are Legend
Magic starts
Seeds waiting
For the sun to shine
Floating in the dark of the night
Like a puffy cloud
Once
Brilliant photons
Start raining down
You thistledown
As if it’s just your dream
Blown by the wind

Little thistledown
As anxious as you and I
But never ill-judged

To reach out
and touch your cheek,
thistledown-light finger
upon the peach-fuzz softness
that is your skin.
I am quiet, reverent
not quite daring to believe
that this sleeping human (you
are so much more than human
and yet your flaws are compliments
to your other-worldly perfection
that root you solidly
to my terra firma) could ever exist
let alone exist here and now-
sleeping so soundly, so peacefully-
and you are mine to touch
as gently as I please.

Lavender lays where the spider cries
On the gravel path by the lawn
The licacious tree spills its leaves
And the spider runs around.

If I could give you a book of thistledown
Lined in sashes of jade silk
And edged in purple squares
Your days fill every page
And every day be you.

Love Mary

Thistledown on a gentle breeze
On it’s way to somewhere

Tiny petals setting sail
Across an Autumn puddle

Blackbirds sing in the Cat-tail reeds
And three puppies sleep in a tangle

I hold a cup of steaming tea
And sit on the front porch steps

As summer fades I recollect
The past year of my life

I didn’t win awards or fame
I didn’t inherit wealth

I finally learned to love myself
And forgive me all my failings

That opened doors I never saw
And gave me eyes to see

The beauties of the life I’ve made
And who I’ve come to be

The strength I didn’t know was there
The gentle hand I offer

I comforted that little girl
Trembling in a corner

Of the dark space in my soul
And told her it will be O.K.

The sunrise here is glorious
And we’re gonna be just fine.
                ljm

Thistledown light

Released and surfing the breeze

Up into a cloudless sky painted memory blue

Dandelion puffs

These are the fairies

At the bottom of a suburban child's garden

Scattered light
mottles through the rank of trees
reigning over the aisle between fields
in royal stainglass arcs of protection.
The wheat is young and green
though stretches tall enough to dance under the influence of wind's song
and conceal
scurrying mouse, hare
and proud breasted pheasant
from hunters gun and farmers dog.
No echoed shots ring out today
only the call of birds
seeking twig and thistledown
to weave chalice cupped homes
high up in the throne of trunk,
out of view
from all but the few
who come to seek solitude.

Birds call
cascades from distant brough
to those foraging grasses high and
between bramble flowers
where insects' hide,
knowing well the thorns to avoid
long before berries bulge and ripe.
Gather they fresh thistledown
for nest's reline
then silence fledglings' shrill
with
bugs and grubs
and stale breadcrumbs
Treasures from a garden of mine.