Tuesday 29 January 2013

One OF these MORNINGS...

... I will climb the rushing slopes of Sunrising hill,
                   under their sigh of larches,
                          just as dawn is bursting apart the night and
                                 she lets her light rage and roll down the fields
                                           and the tangled fortress of badger sett and fox hole...

... And the air will dance with dew and shiver at the might of life...


And I swear I will keep on climbing. And I will climb on up the cloud pillared sky...

... above the hills and these friendly, folded fields. For this body will no longer be heavy enough to keep me earthbound...


And I will keep on climbing up and up
          and into the restless, crow-painted skies
                      blinded with the joy of a small boy's heart
                                   and a timid soul that walks lion-tall among angels and giants
                                              and keeps company with the untameable and the divine.


And I swear that my spirit will break open in wolf-like howls among those castled clouds until the universe pours itself inside of me and my heart beats with its blazing pulse.

... One of these mornings I will be so large my heart will contain universes...

.... and there will be nothing left of me but a hymn of praise.

Saturday 12 January 2013

Those EYES of OLD look at ME...


... and, through the haze of your futures, I look back at you.





I can remember those shoes; the feel of elastic over the bridge of my foot, my fingers curling over the smooth, slightly ribbed texture of the soles... and the smell of rubber and dust... and the coolness of the painted tiles. 

        I remember when buttons felt as big and as creamy as deep-glowing moons of coloured fire, slipping hard and soapy between my fingers and how they defied the narrow, buttonhole slits in all my clothes.

But then again - perhaps - I don't remember... 
          not really...
                          ... only the awareness of vague formless sensations of experiences collected through the dream-time avenues of memories and the songways of my past. 

       What sounds could you hear in that place of sun and laughter? Were there bees humming? Was there the clink of a Sunday morning mechanic busy about his car? Could you hear birds? Ice cream vans? Lawnmowers?


I struggle to remember in the same way that I struggle to recognise in you my heart, my veins, the water of my eyes, the beat of my soul... 
               ...and I also fear that neither would you be able to recognise in me the 'I's that we both know and are.

_________________________

So I sit here - looking across the calendars of my years - and all I want to do is to reach out and protect you: 
       To put my arms around you and to hold you in that sunny, laughing day. I want to shield you from all those days that are my memories and that you have yet to live; from those careless, thoughtless words of youth that you will hear and that will bury themselves deep within you so that you will never forget; those voices that will stay with you and bend the paths you take; the glances given (perhaps not even really meant) that will take away that laughter...
... oh, it will return. That laughter WILL return many many times, but never in quite the same way as it was then. 

You will discover things that will make your world grow dark and you will learn to fear and when you look into the night skies you'll cry. For it was in Eden, before there was ever any fiery sword of exile, that we first learnt about fear. Little man, you will hurt people (though you never wished it) and that hurt will remain with you and you will make so many, many mistakes...
       
                   ... and, you see, I want to save you from all that...


_________________________                     

.....But is this the father in me speaking? Wanting to protect, wanting to keep safe a young flame who doesn't yet realise how tender it is.

And yet I see you there - sitting on that sunny porch - and I realise that I am not your father. I am in no position to be your guardian. It is YOU who is MY father. I am grown from you, not you from me. I am YOUR progeny. What I am, in part, is because of what you were/are and all those thousand upon thousand other 'me's caught millisecond by millisecond in the flickerboard of my life; each one taking over where the other leaves off.

Now I understand what you are saying to me. You have others to care for you (and they cared for you well) and those others will dry your tears (when those times come). I see again the spontaneous, unselfconscious laughter of one poised on the edge of a glorious world. I see once more the little child who laughing opens his arms to the world and say's, "I'm here, what wonders will you bring to me?"  

That little laughing lad will one day, through film and pixel, sit across from me and say, "this is what you have come from. This is how your journey started - with laughter and open arms embracing the world. Finish it too with laughter and open arms."

I am glad you were there - little man...
        Your heart still beats within me.