Breaking on the stones

It is the night
before Easter,
the night
of the waiting day.

We are in the body
of the dark sky,
its breath
is cool on our skin.

We are walking
on the earth,
walking on the bones of it,
through the dark dunes,
through the quiet of them
towards the angry surf.

The sea is breaking on the stones,
breaking on the stones
over and over.

The roar of its fall
fills the shell of the sky,
fills the ear of our bodies.

We stand in its call
until we can hold
the force of it,
until it finds an echo
in our silence.

Awake!

Awake, awake, blow wide the curtains of the mind and scoop up scattered thoughts. 

Awake, awake, beat furrows in the murkiness and mud and prepare the seed for harvest. 

Awake from our houses and fences and safety, awake from our darkness and sleeping and winter, awake now for spring is here.  It is bursting through the air from dark clouds, it is budding from the soil in new paint, it is shouting from the trees in green song, it is cutting back the night in fresh dawns.

Awake, awake, there is music if we listen.  There’s a fanfare in the hail, there’s a drumbeat in the rain, there’s a trumpet in the wind, there’s a bugle in the sun.  Spring is come.  The ragged grass and moss are cut, the mud mounds cast by worms are squashed, the branches on the ground are cleared and we are getting ready.  We can smell it in the air, we can feel it on our skin, we can hear it in our feet, spring has come and we are ready!

Stripping the silence

The air
held thought like sheep’s wool
on a wire, soft on a
barb, blowing white and blowsy
on a dark thorn.
Gathering it felt like
stripping the silence for my own need
to not be alone,
floating in the bones behind the universe
like a toy balloon used to
bumping and hurrying
along

-the breath of the stars,
the pause of the hours,
the threshold between now
and other, and dreams, 
and the scurrying beetles
of thought.

21st March 2023

This is the time of the Spring equinox.  We are moving from winter to spring, from dark to light, from cold to warmth, from bareness to the vibrant flush of spring flowers and new-born leaves.  Let us also move from anxiety and dismay at world events and the state of our planet to love and hope.  Let us sow these seeds into the thirsty soil.

Equinox

This is it, the official beginning of spring.  Oh, the long awaited date and season and sun.  The sun is white, sitting over the tops of the houses to the East, diffused through the thin cloud that heralds the start of a glorious day.   It is still cold from early evening to early morning marking the hours of the sun’s absence, but it builds to a warmth you can live in during the day.

I love this day, the changeover from winter to the early train of summer.  I love that everywhere today is the same, we all have twelve hours of day and night, equal night, equinox.  And as we sail smoothly into our opening light and new season of warmth, so the south tilts into its fall, into darkness and the call of winter.  Today is a magic day, yet most people won’t notice it save perhaps a smile at the new-found warmth of the sun.  We live on our planet like strangers, not recognising its journeys or its moods, sheltered from the weather and with a ready light to hide the dark. 

Celebrating an equinox or solstice acknowledges the birthdays of our home, enjoying the relationship we have with the earth on which we live all our days.  It is also enjoying our relationship with  the Divine, whatever that means for us, seeing God in all things – the new sun rising, the hazy air sharpening, the primroses covering the lawn in gentle yellow welcome, the quickening of spring awakening the buds, calling the call to life that echoes in our blood. I desire to be out here today but I cannot, so can I take these elements of earth, air, fire and water and hold them in a burning cauldron safe in my heart?  Can I trust as trees do, or will I always bother and fuss before I find the path?  Is it part of the human condition, part of my makeup, a jigsaw dance between the bother and the bliss, learning to carry all the bits equally well, living in memory and faith at the same time, trusting as trees dig roots into deep soil, trying to enjoy all parts of the journey and not just the destination.  Today I have things to do that will call me away.  Today I hang my needs on the wheel of the sun and let it turn me. 

Lifted

There is no wind
to lift a kite,
no stars garlanding
the night
to lift a dream,
just the beat
of heart and time
to mark the chance
a life can take,
not bound by bread
and circuses
but squirrelling
the happier days,
valuing
the people met
and letting wrongs
fall by the way.