Friday, August 27, 2010

to the bee we walked by in the park.

Small honey bee:
From you I have no fear
this gold and windswept day,
content on your flower.

Yours would be the death
held in your sting,
for me but momentary.
May you live long.

Dying in defence, the instinct
that allowed your birth;
or else another kind of love.
The precious sun that shines:

Yours is the sweetness
you take and give back.
Happy to wander, from
flower to flower.

Monday, August 9, 2010

116.

love is not love
Which alters when it alteration findes,
Or bends with the remover to remove.
O no, it is an ever fixed marke
That lookes on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandring barke,
Whose worths unknowne, although his higth be taken.

Sunday, August 8, 2010

the first breath.

If there were royal blood
anywhere existent in the world;
if it were sweeping your heart,
your hands,
the crown of your head,

and not of yourself
but by descent,
a gift both kind and noble—

would the air you breathe be different,
the bird song or the early sun
in waiting celebration?

Make way in your moments
for new ways to enter
among us.

Tuesday, August 3, 2010

inscribed upon.

We are scattered people.
Careful relations of
mother, of uncle,
of father of fathers,
blown to the wind
by a cultural tractor plough.
Now the nameless wandering
over red dust.

It still gives birth
and the trees still grow.

We are treasures carried off,
piled together, heading to the north
among spoils from all shores.
Voices bound but not alloyed.
You the historian—
say what you will
about the people we remember.

There are names engraved
in stories you can hardly
recognise;
let us then be claimed.
Brought to life

glimmering,
response to fire.