Oak

Bending green as the willow and supple watered
She spins the long silvered thread of growth with
Nimble fingers. Twisting round that glowing seed
She braids tender roots from blood warm tendrils.
Calling to silence she speaks her echo low within
The longing fibres, stretching into the stems and
Sucking on jewels hidden in secret filled, fragrant
Darkness. Colours felt or tasted in earth richness.

The spreading wand of greening slow weaves its
Way into the light with folded leaves, and opens
Slow newborn eyes, uncurling with gentle touch,
Flowing tender and filling fast on sturdy strength
Of fired sparks. Sun and earth feed his living flesh
And growth shoots widely out and into the arched
Sky bow. Hardness covers tender cells of moist
Life and binds him rooted to her steadying hand.

Growth is slowly steady. Quick years pass over
His head with seasons waking, growing, falling,
Sleeping turning with a breath. He comes of age
As flashing ages whirl by unnoticed, and his long
Maturity looms light quick in his eyes. Hard as
Walking rocks he moves the earth round his feet
For soft comfort, shifting slowly as time herself,
Digging down into deepest, moist, fertile nooks.

Up and out he rises with the steady flow of ages
And builds himself from the one on whom he rests.
Feeding gently, turning earth, air, water to sap,
Wood, and green fire he breathes in the day and
Night as her deep blue mantle passes overhead.
Mighty standing tall, his graceful strength gives
And takes with the earth and lights slow rhythm,
Breathing round his girth and singing in his hair.

Drawing out breaths moisture in the quieting dark
To give back feeding air to earths sunlit beauty,
He balances power on shoulders of warm breadth.
Deep footed, anchored long and hardly held, while
Spreading slowly, feeling carefully in unexplored
Depths, taking darkly sugared life in feeling way,
He breathes it out with the earths darkness and
Inwards in her laughing days of showered sunlight.






His centre pillars solid now with comfort, easing
Stiffened limbs full of weariness worn and heavy
Muscles damped sore with overwork. We come to
Take warm cheer released from his dancing flame.
Strong to rest the quickened flesh of red on green
And calm with knotty thought brows full of care.
Flickering life, we flutter past and on to flash our
Quick brightness. Spent, we return to embracing
Earth to be breathed as moisture round the stars.



Copyright MoonSongstress 2002

The Creator

Weaving round the weft, warp taut upon tightened skin-dew
She makes her way. Softly on the falling mountain streaming
Dance of laughing water she laps her leaf green curling boat
As the paddle writes full-bloom roses in the silver blue below.

The silky green cups round and under, supporting with deftly
Hand-sewn living twigs and supple grass braided glossily round,
And a single drop of that crystal quivers on the bowing blade.
Suspended in time the rolling sphere is bright in the rainbow

Rays smiling down upon its outer smallness so blue, complete.
She looks through the skin into the colours beneath, watching
It play its long moment of falling. Part of all you are, she says,
Alive in the whole. The joining brothers enfold its blue within.

Shimmering tides gently kiss the sweet bodied fingertips of she
Who greens the leaf with living source and glosses long the
Shining lengths of woven stemming tides. With fragrant fruit
Her hair falls washing, waving onto the dipping mirror down.

Flowers dance in her laughter and silver rays rest in thoughts
Of pensive silence singing through space, arcing straight curves
From her bow. Fingers dip into blue coolness and feel life there
Between waves nuzzling delicately cell to cell, talking touch.

I am you, she says. We are all one. As flowing water currents
Pass through the edges of her she becomes river and merges
Life with life. The little boat lies quiet now in her arms as they
Sail on together, creator and created, circles spiralling onwards.


Copyright MoonSongstress 2002

The River

Flowing through the dark blue channel of my mind
The river runs. Sometimes the thought currents
Are softly steady in their reckoning as they dance
Smoothly round the courses twistings and turnings.

At other times the eddying of the waters skin cuts
Itself on the trapped fast, decaying branches of too
Old ideas, and sometimes it washes them clean away.
In places the water rests in shallow silty bays where

Fat, brown trout snap lazily at slow, buzz-saw flies
Who glisten greenly in the meandering shade. Then
My thoughts hitch to the backs of those flies and we
Zip together into the sun, cartwheeling across high,

Lost continents and skating over the skimming tides
Of the lake lapping waters; we ride together, my
Black stallions and I. Now and again we spy smoke
Rising turrets over the horizon and the castles of

The air beckon my venturing. And ever down below,
The earths blue blood pumping river waves gently
As it carries my thoughts ever onwards to the salt
Water sea of our mothers tears. Down into deep,

Dark crevices we descend sharply, diving lower still
And lower through narrow, firefly lit caves and into
Arching caverns, dripping with the milky droppings of
Limestone roof-dragons. Which way is up? But then

I realise that there is no up unless I make one, for
This is the kingdom of my mind which bends round
Pillars of light and swoops like a merry swallow into
The infinite coolness, or glides on warm, whispered

Breezes as a dandelion seed surveying the emerald
And sapphire landscape shining below. And I love
The place my mind has made for its pleasure, simply
For the joy of creation. And I begin to understand

Why it began. Why it is all here, why the world turns
And stunningly spins like a top across the silvered
Blackness of time. Love is the reason, love of life
And we carry that life in precious packets of love.

And every part of life has its role to play in the love.
How do we do it? Simply by existing and creating
We turn the wheel onwards. Snowflakes all, we carry
The rejoicing forever in our fleeting, delicate beauty.



Copyright 2001 MoonSongstress,
This work may be reproduced if copyright information is included.

The Rainbow

You were there. Ever as a child I knew you.
Passing through my cells with the hot, flashing
Speed of coloured light, and the colours all
Talked their own language. You spoke to me.

Then you spoke. And you still do with voices
Less easily heard by one who still tries to see
The faeries playing on the water and running
Round the huge blades of grass and sometimes

Does see. And it is all the more precious now
To these eyes who have known painful things
And tried to forget them because they hid the
Shining glimmer of the myriad spiralling light

That I could fall into as it whooshed through
The parts of me that vibrated along with it,
Following along the easy rush of energy that
Swooped me up into the air to twirl round and

Round the colours of melted jewels that ran
Into my mind through every pore and cleaned
Each cell till it glittered like the crock of gold,
And I knew well the treasure and where it hid.

I followed you because your beckoning arm
Curved like a willow. Immeasurably strong in
The easy willingness to bend without any need
Of breaking to show your sweetly green sap

Round the curving of your supple spine to the
Bended coolness of the river with its playing
Insects as they busied themselves with the
Important things, skating on the sapphire skin

Of the mothers veins, breathed slowly upwards
To the greatest icing sugar coated peaks, only
To fall in the tiniest drops into her cleansing,
Renewing body and once more collect in her

Pockets as she sweetened them with scented
Violets and grass and sugar and spice to feed
The hungry children who stained kneed along
The dappled suns rays on her shining greens.

I waited for you there and you came. And then
I lost you. You were still there in the droplets
Of the suns sweet falling but I did not see you.
Ambition and care coloured my world in grey.

The dreary rope of adulthood wrapped tightly
Round my neck and clung on, clawing at the
Little girl, strangling with lead weights all the
Time, space and joy that gasped within her.

But she fought with the desperate strength
That comes at times when we know that all
Our treasures will be lost in the sucking sand
That so quickly creeps during our inattention.

The willow you are stood waiting for me so
Patiently on the safety of the riverbank that
Bordered straight onto that sucking sand and
Your bending branches reached deftly down.

My exhausted hands cried out to the green
And your supple limbs caught me in their
Braided cradle, drawing a mewing soul back
To the soft, grassy bank to revive and wash

Herself clean of the grimy dust of that reality
That so many others embrace but she could
Not. The lapis waters rinsed clear and never
Again shall I allow those grey fingers near me.


Copyright MoonSongstress 2001
Moral rights asserted
This may be published if this copyright information is included

Earth

Flesh of my flesh, she said as she rolled up
The little ball of wet clay from the cauldron
And fashioned it with deft hands, into me.
Not perfect by any means, but as I lay under

The gaze of my maker she was happy with me
And my eyes were opened. Under her loving
Gaze I knew my worth. My clay warmed and
Hardened under those keen eyes and a shiny

Coat enveloped the imperfections that were
Perfect in her making. Her hand passed over
My eyes. Sleep, she said, and I glazed over in
The cocoon of pink warmth till the time came.

Sleeping like countless sisters and brothers
Of my clay, in the rich liquid of the soup of life
Teeming with all the tiny makers and their
Busyness, I was suspended in dreams of her.

Her stability rested sure beneath the stuff of
My feet. Earth to earth I walked one on the
Other and never felt her sensitive movements
As she swayed in the breeze of time, dancing

A dance full of singular chances and numerous
Miracles which I could only see as safe and
Sound sameness and strength. How did you
Move mountains? By a butterflys wing beat,

She said. Why did it happen? I asked. Things
Happen, she said, and I could rest in that and
Feel secure in the knowing of it because it
Allowed me to live fully for the present time.

Love lives now and builds itself on foundations
Of memories whilst all the time looking with
Anticipation for the promises to come. Basking
In the now is where our happiness lies deep,

And as I scanned the horizon for shadows of
Wings of future and rested easy on the solid
Warmth of her curving fleshed bones I knew
The liquid of now for my time, a place where

It was right for my growth and flowering, and
Where my little difference would be made.
The long night of preparation was past and
Tomorrows light to come, but now was here.

Copyright (c) MoonSongstress 2001


Air

Breathing low as the grass through the meadow
Of my mind, She came. Breath of my breath,
She said, exhaling life dew through me and out
The other side of existence. My centre filled to

Its brim with the salty fresh breezes as it drank
Them in with the hunger of wolves scenting prey.
And I awoke to the life of now to stare into the
Eyes of the storm and feel her pass through me,

Leaving sharp traces of her cool knowledge and
Salt-pan crusting thought, rimming my mind with
Its diamond, crystal, biting edge. Teach me, I
Cried after her. But she was gone and though I

Searched, she was nowhere to be found. But the
Pricking knowledge called me and I scratched
Its surface down and down until I reached the
Core of my soul. There I found her deep in my

Centre, waiting the ages out for times sweet
Wisdom to dawn in the light of my inner eye.
Yes, I am here, She said. Where did you think
You would find me? So I sat at her feet, looking

Into the grey mist of the morning light, and as
The soft edged dawn was born low in my mind,
Understood with the rising of my sun that She
Was me and I should look within for her shining.


Copyright 2001 MoonSongstress


Fire

Melting like wax into the cauldron of change
With ethers intermingling into the wombing
mould waiting, you cast our bronzing forms
and transformed pure spirit into hard matter.

We were made then. Stars shooting through
Swirling depths of space, we descended to
The cooling blue, green places of our self-full
lands, from the source element of all creation.

Fires still burned in our bellies, fanned now by
The sweet kisses of your smiling lips to round,
Orange balls of shining life all a-glitter; and we
Lifted them in our arms and danced with joy.

Hot, licking tongues of liquid orange essence
Curled and caressed with the sound of your
Coming, and we lay warm in the flickering glow
Of red and orange, yellow, white, and black.

You manifested life, injected blood-hot vigour
Through the thirsty veins of trees and animals.
The flames within us drank long and deep on
Rich brown darkness of demerara sugared leaf

Sap and your joy danced high inside us in the
Golden light of glowing newborn sparks of sun.
Our flames burned together then, flickering in
Time, and the strong connection of bursting life

Spoke silently by touch. Little orange leaves
Of light in the spiralling black centre of each
Living, breathing creature fed life and on it
Within the giant, turning, and fluttering cycle.

So we watched, waited, danced and drank, and
Then my time came; and I emerged from the
Brew with blue and gold burning wings, all
Brimming with desire for life, perched high on

Leaves of dark, dripping green, cool under my
Hot-foot stance. The air was so softly thick
With the pollen of plenty that I spread-wing
soared into the light, quick and nimble in my

New world of solid matter. Creatures of flesh
And spirit danced with my new body and the
Food of life was sweet. I took my chance with
Firm hands and rose up, welcoming possibility.


Copyright MoonSongstress 2001


Water

Streams bubble and play from her lips and out
Of the tips of her fingers. Green-blue clarity is
Made from death and decay as I beat my breast
With the scourge of all my guilt. She seeps into
My soul like a torrent of tears, clearing away the
Dirt and detritus left in the river by life used up.
Spent I lie, as the waters wash the blame away.

With the blue of scented lavender, my senses
Are filled as I float softly weightless through the
Long, lost clouds. Her salty tears weep my body
Clean as they seep from the eyes of the Earth
And I taste them, and then drink their goodness
Into the centre of my soul, kissing the cooling,
Wetness with eyelashes mirroring the emotion.

Fathoms down I lie, as lifes cradle shines blue
Above my head and the womb of creation holds
Me in the thrall of healing. Thick with whetting
Sensation I stretch out into the dark and find
Nothing but flowing space surrounds me. Time
Passes, currents cool and warm and I know the
difference. Life holds that knowing in her arms.

I heal and grow. Stretching my branches slowly
Into the green and blue, carefully feeling a way
With roots hardening from soft sap to solid rock
In as much time as it takes. Still I drink her in,
Breathing the cool liquid through my pores and
Thirsty veins. Spreading her living essence from
Earths heart to mine she comes to my embrace.

Copyright 2001 MoonSongstress


Spirit

Your snow white, downy wing brushes my face
With the touch of an angel, and as I look up to
See you, emerald shinings flash past my eyes.
I feel you then in the air, and I reach inwardly

To follow you into the lair sought by those who
Need to face the dragon of the self, and to pass
Through its fearsome fire to emerge out of the
Dark portal new, and one with the forever old.

Down, down into the middle of my soul I spiral
Round, arcing my path to the music of spheres
Smoothly and softly, with the care of ages and
Newness of grass first seeding I watch the way.

The path winds smoothly broad before my eyes
With places to stop, places to watch and to wait.
Wisdom of swirling time flashes by in her silent
Chariot and I fix myself onto her, fast and free,

Strong with silver threads of gossamer silking.
The journey is an electric charge, running wild
behind her glowing white, oily muscled steeds,
Our manes rolling together through the salt air.

The twisting of the spiral is tighter woven now
And the glossy, braided road smooth as satin
In colours glowing of the darkening deep place.
Through the soft air glimmers of sound play on

My heart. Are they real? Are they there, truly?
Yes! They pluck at the my core again and my
Soul resonates back in accord. What can it be?
The rose is calling to her own and hearts feel

Songs of the ages. The horses pull faster now,
Feeling the call as I do, to spur hard muscle in
The urgency of sharpened, flesh biting tooth,
Acid and lash of whipping tail. The end is near

As orange dragon fire spurts through the dark.
Fear is my familiar, nearer and nearer coming.
This is not what I meant! I should not be here,
I am no dragon slayer, my thoughts shoot and

Ride the boiling air, dancing round the flame as
The doorway looms high on a last turn. I close
Eyes of terror with nostrils wide in the sulphur.
The portal is past and the glaring heat shines

Even through closed eyelids. Horse flesh stands
Still in that place and the silence fills my mind.
Nothing happens. My thoughts still churn, but
Slows as the speed of the place chimes within.

The dragon awaits, I know. I taste the fear on
My breath but the silence beckons. What is it?
Calling songs reach with caressing fingers into
My mind. A trick! The dragon calls with charms

To pull me into its playground. I think and wait.
Still nothing, the breath is cavernously empty.
Curiosity sends its vital itch into my mind and
I scratch. My eyes flicker open to see to see

What? The rose smiles with a warmth of softly
Glowing embers and sings a song to my heart.
Her roundness embraces me in overwhelming
Acceptance and I rush to be enveloped by her.

Where is the dragon? I say. You vanquished
It with the conquering of your fear, she speaks
With a voice full of the callings of time and the
Stretching of threads through age and space.

The rose opens her petals to give blossoming
Warmth of creation to the reachings of infinity.
The spirit that nests the universe within her is
A tiny flame amidst the blooming of my heart.


Copyright MoonSongstress 2001