I’ve
heard talk of a quiet violence
waiting
at the water’s edge
where
children learn the earth by golden shores
and
gulls decorate shadows with all their height.
I’ve
heard the mountains speak of their agony
a
gripping smog hurting their stone -
the
sparrow and the wren salvage hope from the wind
casting
their song over the ears of morning,
I’ve
seen the mountaineer conquer
the
obstinacy of rock with the smallest
of
hands, breath leaving his mouth
like
an eruption of ampersands.
I’ve
heard the forest’s thin call
as
it’s left to shudder under its heavy load,
I
remember a time it would climb
to
paint the world with its green
where
now will the lovers go to know each other’s palms?
How
will kisses announce themselves to lips
if
the path we’ve walked for so long
becomes
lost to the noise we share?
I’ve
seen how the willow holds its perennial lean
while
cliffs frail as deceit drop to the sea.
A
rainbow bought and sold for its skin
is
worn like victory by another skyscraper.
Lakes
still embrace shoals of fish,
while
icebergs melt like snow on lips.
Seasons
start to run from each other
while
love’s left to shiver on the edge of a leaf.
But
there’s still time to rescue the tranquillity
the
fragile space between parks, pitches and sea –
the
cosmos in all its wonderment and us,
a
blink in its starry eye.
I’ve
heard of this kind of dying before
slow,
white and expansive. I’ve followed
the
groan and made my lungs from the trail.
We
are building new rain,
We
are harbouring less sight
an
infant tilts his head skywards
and
asks his mother what’s beyond
she
takes him by the hand and says
we
will shape the brilliant and new
I
very much like you have been saved so many times by a view
yesterday
the sun whispered into the moon’s ear
and
the moon trembled, turning white with fear.