nature’s bonfire burns on
-title from ‘That Nature is a Heraclitean Fire and of the comfort of the Resurrection’ by Gerard Manley Hopkins
Sometimes
the arching arrogance of
sea waves astounds
the mouth-frotted estuary
the mesh the mix of sea’s mastery
the lugwormed Braille on beaches
the grinding shrill of stars travelling
all that unbeautiful flame-rage
in treetops
we do know that sometimes
earth’s skin stretches
it breaks too
the wounding and the pain
but sometimes brokenness is
just love’s way of enduring
after all kinds of walking around
- in morning’s dunecreep canopy
in purpled pig-face
sea sandwort, saltwort
and marram grass, I met
the wallaby there in
the crackling air we
stared
under skeins of cloud
and sunlight unravelling
cloud-backed shadows spiralling
kadoodling turtle-doves uplifting
into shape-shifting air
- to pay attention is to hear
divine voices below our feet
where blind fish sing glory songs
these times do have the mind of past winters
so listen to warnings of ageing hibakusha
about bodies corroborating scarred indifference
scrutinise the world intently for
are we not here to touch these earthly things
with our caressing words
to listen to the earth
its beating heart
find fine words to
re-consecrate all
the scribbles jottings
sketchings of a universe
