Perpetual falls
floods numberless
and dun-
suddenly the earth gives way
and a veil of white
leap pure with sunlight
quenching darkness
with irresistible thirst,
the sky’s gift
of million-hued brightness.
A dove weaves through
this cataract of jewels
all for her, His folly.

So it’s just You and me now-
how shall we stand each other,
sullen rebel and Unseen Power?
All the years through
that count or do not count
to dissipate or expiate
and end at last
You again face to face
to despise or recognise?
All that I have heard is lies
in truth or in comparison
with You the inescapable.
I yet must choose against my will
to forgive Your robbery of stolen things
and hope within the despair that
is my house
Your jealousy is greater.

Pines
tall guardians of a resinous silence
you will outlive my memory of you-
my beeches
copper lashed,
silven limbed
when I can no longer run
and kiss you
as I did in ignorance then
will I see you, poplars,
hear your aerial
voice heaven?

The dykes flash like swords
and the earth’s more dead
under the cold green forest of nails
than in it’s ice-wracked glory.
But perceive- in another land
the fields are white,
the grain rests garnered,
and the ring of heaven is full-
if not already, then never.

As dust glowing swirls its steps

circling a hidden star,

or filings jostle round an onyx lodestone without light,

we’re drawn, clumsy paths colliding to our centre,

a doughty bickering to the edge of meaning,

reason for all- why we fools are fallen in together,

the radiant absence of an empty tomb.

The fens’ dark disk
turns under the sky’s black die
two planes of water bearing down almost
to touch and break the heavens’
dam held off now only by the frail static
of the reeds.
Light knifes keen twixt
darknesses, a steel
ringing at the edge of sight
whether dawn or end’s full brightness
You stand here at my side.

There must be a tree
within, outside,
roots not in this earth,
a seed safe
(in a handful of unfallen soil)
from this ghastly attrition
like lead beating
on a wraith-
that You can make bloom
for the new time
when breathes Your air,
drinks Your rain,
gathers in Your light,
hid even from the
one who carries it,
prohibiting death,
life in waiting living.