Time
Time loops like scalloped embroidery;
rises, billows, then rejoins its stem
– like on the head of a blooming flower,
each petal is rooted in its pistil.
Time blossoms, flares from the core
of lives. Temporal flights travel to all
spheres of our beingness...
We weave and thread: now here, now
there, now then. And, even when we die,
time’s cobwebs catch us. Her silk skeins
stroke us, hold us, in our survivors’ minds.
Time loops, like scalloped embroidery –
she gifts time-travel, until the time when all
who remember us have passed into the mist.
Excitement Equals
Excitement is a howler monkey
screeching and swinging wild
through the charged summer air,
from branch to swaying branch.
Brother-sister creatures soon appear,
numbers double then treble, on and on;
they all dance dizzying derangements
and shriek their cacophonic calls
Disturbed leaves fall, detached
from their petioles – so lightly
attached to their steady branches –
and fall to the forest floor. Their loss
is ignored as aroused primates
whirl and jump, squeal and squawk.
Excitement equals howler monkeys
delighting in whirling-dervish orgies
before spinning from high-up to free fall
and land on the solid ground beneath it all.
The Find
Up in the hills, in the borderlands
we unearthed a rusted horseshoe,
half-covered in sandy soil, by our path.
I saw it first, exclaimed and pulled it out,
warmed by its promise of good fortune.
Your brow creased, And who’s going to
carry that. We’ve miles to cover before
we reach the car. I smiled and stroked
your arm; once you’d have done anything
for me, when I smiled like that. No,
you said, Your find, your responsibility.
So, I carried it in my smaller rucksack,
along with our packed lunches, careless
of rust dust soiling our sandwiches.
Back at home, I placed the horseshoe
on our windowsill, between my jars
of sea-glass. Next morning, I found
you’d turned our good-luck totem
upside down. It was already empty,
all possibilities spilt upon the ground.
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