The light is born.
It calls me into the wide air,
the slow stream that flows
from the weight of night in the west
through my garden
to the edge of sun.

Here the day waits to be formed,
to run its body over the fat earth,
to rub its nose into the corners of dark,
nudging the trees awake.

It is glistening,
waiting to squeeze its newness
into the old harbour,
ready to flood as the rim of earth
cracks its ripeness and delivers it
fresh as baby’s breath.

If I sit softly in its saddle
I can see it unfurl around me,
lightening the air like love.
I am a princess to its promise.

My boat and my body
are ready.

There are currents calling
from the deep sea,
singing from the crest
of the running wave.

I have left
the hearth of home,
turned my back
on the place of shelter.

The ocean is my mother,
the flowing air my father
and I will ride
the calms and storms.

I am surrendered
to the turning tide,
I am directed
by the untamed wind.

They are the breath
and breast of God.

(Notes – the peregrini were Celtic monks who undertook a kind of pilgrimage or peregrinatio on the sea where the purpose wasn’t the destination but the voyage.  It was about the inner journey, about finding the wilderness in the ocean, to be alone without normal supports so that God could fill every moment of their day.  And it was about exile – leaving their homeland (usually Ireland) voluntarily out of love for God and allowing the winds and currents to bear them where they would, abandoning themselves to the mercy and providence of God.  The currach is similar to a coracle, a boat made of hide stretched over a wooden frame, but bigger.)

In the dark
there is a gift
I might have missed
in the bright of day.

It is the slowing of time,
the sense of air
soft filling each space,
touching my face;
of self with no mask
or pretence,
no agenda,
no inner or outer pressure,
just silence so loud
I can hear it.

It is so empty, it is full.
I can feel all that is there,
all that is always there,
although I am not.

I can honour it
by doing nothing.

The wind is skeeting the tired tide,
the slow surface of low waves,
blowing it away from shore
in fast running sheets like hidden shoals
escaping the shallowing land.

Above, it seizes a sycamore tree,
lookout on the cliffs,
ballooning in its branches,
sending wild signals
with its blowabout hair.

The swifts are racing it,
tossing their bodies high
before they swoop to find its sinew.

It shakes and sifts the banked bracken,
whistling through grass
and nettle feathers at its edge.

The wind is highly strung tonight,
whirling skirts and stamping feet,
shape-shifting the landscape
in random acts of passion.

I am not chained to shore
but floating free on your surface,
tethered by your tide,
the sun licking my face,
the salt buoying me up
with the swell of your laughter.

I am a gull
hanging on your thermals,
high as a kite.
I am dissolving in you today
and will go which way
your wind blows.

I am clean with you,
stripped to bone and soul,
dripping with your delight.
You are so full
I might burst.

Lick me earthbound,
snuggle me soft as a puppy
asleep on your milk.