Love

Others

Some choose to
Live and let die
Watch a mother cry
Hear an old man grieve
Turn a cold hand, leave

Avoid another vow
Furrows in the brow
Take another's toil
Feed the ego, spoil

Eternally asking 
Am I one or the other?
Do I love?
Do I bother?

Love like

Rain on a tin roof
White noise soothing
Muddled mind
To dream

Each drop echoes
A different sound
Like a typewriter of
Make believe

Writing novellas
Words unspoken
Moves a token
Gesture of love

Sounds identify
Life unbounded
Connect to world
Eden above

Cherishing dark blue
Burning midnight oil
Happiness toil
Space beside

With you
New Norfolk, Tasmania

Restoration

It’s the things that aren’t said that hurt the most.

I can hear the tower clock chime from my pillow

It is the only constant I hear.

But even this clock;

I envy the care and attention

it receives for its restoration.

I hope to have its constancy at heart.

Spiritus Sanctus:

‘O Holy Spirit, as the sun is full of light, the ocean full of water,

Heaven full of glory, so may my heart be full of thee.’

– The Valley of Vision

Season of singing

I love all the unseen things about you

I wait for them to make themselves known

a word, a look, a gesture, a smile

a gift of Love – one treasure I own.

 

When I stand before the body, in the flesh

I am confused. It’s You that I miss.

I respond in words I don’t understand

I lose part of myself in this.

 

Waiting for the unseen,

the centre of our being

to come forward again

In the Spring.

 

When you play, your work, your dream

it is there – the unseen

making music in my ears

as sweet as a song of songs.

 

Sweet fruit. Spring flush

Eat, dear friends, and drink your fill of love¹

The days were Made for this.

The season of singing has come.²

 

Love stronger than death

burns like a Mighty fire

Many waters cannot quench

Nor rivers sweep it away.³

 

By day the Lord directs his love,
    at night his song is with me—
    a prayer to the God of my life. –Psalm 42:8

buds over the stream

¹Song of Songs 5:1

²Song of Songs 2:12

³Song of Songs 8:6-7

Image source: ‘Looking through the trees to the stream’ by John Groves

Timbre of the Heart

A rare bird indeed

we are exotic, an ancient lineage

migrated south.

We are two much, one to know another

protect, preserve our own our offspring,

territorial ties that wound

What we love, what is it?

The glorious plumage?

A splendour to behold

The sound of our call, cool, titillating talk?

are but echoes in the sky.

No, much more than that.

The most glorious sound to adore

is the heart beating in our chests

Listen, my friend, keenly –

look with those two deep oceans you keep.

See – every word, move, motion,

every flash in the eye, affection

reveals the timbre of the heart.

 

Soundings

 

Barstools, beers and lonely cheers

Sideways glances, sound and fears

Top of the loft, corner of the street

Just dropping off, by chance again we meet

 

Perched high above on a leather bus seat

Looking down on you as sun and horizon meet

Living through pictures on your wall

Passing on paper cranes, love and all

 

Resonating strings and sings around

Searching for words unspoken sound

Fathom feeling depths unknown

Silence falls like shell shock tone

 

Rivers of lyrical, satirical rhymes

Flood down the mount of eternal time

A single vase of living water, blooms

Tapped from the source in our living rooms