As the steam train
approached with
wheels of a bygone era,
a thought came to mind,
that that which may
be once beyond reach,
might be held again.

Although, that which
is sought from the past
might sometimes
be a singular, formed cog,
one that if it were to resume
wouldn’t quite move
with the present.

So, inner wheels shifted,
leaving behind
uncollected fragments,

which seamlessly merged to
lighter, cumulus skies
from a train’s window –
above hills curved by streams,
and towards trees made of
wildlife songs, unfamiliar
but somehow all a leaf
and alive with a sense of place.

And it began to dawn
that perhaps some of those
landscapes weren’t mine
to hold onto either.
For I was just passing through
the seams of life stories,
sat between vivid memories
once lived by others.

Maybe, those residual echoes,
they had never been
quite abandoned,
but remained, weathered,
distinct as dry stone walls,
or the murmur of streams
overriding rocks,
interlinked, like a perpetual,
flowing commentary.

And where those
memories that remained
were noticed, cherished
and released once more,
was to be reminded that hope,
connection and everything
else that mattered,
lingered too.

~

Sea, you calmed
the day, in that beginning hour.
It’s not always your forte,
but it was then.
Waves cleared
more than footprints,
each a sand pool
swallowed, untraceable.

Clouds moved to the north,
swept the thoughts we carried,
for it’s only what was held
in the moment
that mattered
in that time, and place.

And mirrored against
each breaking wave
we walked the ancient way,
the fond way the moon takes
along the coast
before the sun rises fully,

with conversation told
as shells,
some bright, some fresh,
spiralling into old favourites,
others well, where you could almost
hear the sound of the city
if you listened enough.

It’s sometimes a case
of what you pick up upon
and distance to,
on mornings like that one,
those latter shells
subsiding into an ocean
with a voice just its own.

~

(Beachcomber painting by Rachel Bochnia)

With a mischief
behind its mirrored eyes,
a curious bird,
hops between jumps
to make quite certain
you’ve followed
its steady progress.

And witnessed within
a squirrel’s desire
to be further up,
right there at the treetop,
the resolution
of an unclaimed ambition
runs along relaxed,
and free.

On a robin perched
upon the back of
a garden chair,
a burst of red suddenly lifts
across the sky
in a flight of spirited colour.

And there’s a notion,
an impulse
as the dawn settles between
invisible boundaries,
and sits down beside you,
that your own move,
your own sequence of steps,
your own great ambition
and defining direction,
is also anticipated.

(24.6.23)

I can’t offer you a chair
in my home,
for inside all is upturned,

unconventional.

Yet, there is light upstairs,
and that is where
the roof,
which should do otherwise,
dives for the stars.

Under a disorderly
meadow’s shadow,
as day topples past noon,
sky a semblance
of some thirty years ago
when eyeline
was just below my knee
and horizon, a sharp grass blade,
wildlife hides
with an occasional scurry,
this field gives a sneeze,
then settles again.

Brow creases,
my mind focuses
on a two century old companion
who runs rings around
my brief trip on this host planet.

Each notch on its bark,
fascination, map lines
for insects to traverse,
the original skyscrapers
and today, I wonder
thinking back,
how many more junctions
life has yet to carve in me.

Now, in this canopied quietness
I stop, listen, feet extended
to where my shoes
lay discarded on the ground,
roots felt through socks
as times when I’ve tripped,
hair leaning against
nature’s memories,
each strand interwoven
with the sway of wildflowers.
Yellow ones under the chin,

“Do you like butter?”
they still ask in a children’s voice.

With the emerald inland sea
all around, I drift
into afternoon,
the sound of wooden oars,
breezed branches
that shift in half closed eyes.
Silhouettes against
the sky’s glare give images
like black and white timbered houses.
and I wonder,
if they have a room for me.

For though I love
this place, I wish
I was somewhere beyond
human perception,
some would call it paradise,
I would call it the light
before the edge of the world.
If only buttercups
held a little more shine
and staying power.

It was just a regular day
until an infant elephant
strayed away
from the safety of the main loaf.

I mean the herd.

Anxiously, the other older slices
looked on as it ran exuberantly
around chasing crumbs ,
innocently oblivious
to the danger of being eaten,
until once again it was reunited with
its elephant toast mother.

She gave it a right telling off
let me tell you!
It was a completely unbuttered
life lesson for the little elephant.

Oh my, the other toast elephants
had to cover their ears until she
was done and her eyes
had stopped popping.

Little toast elephant promised
he would never chase crumbs again,
adding under his breath
not while she was watching
anyhow.

At that moment
there was much celebratory
trumpeting and stomping of crusts.
Breakfast was always
a dangerous time
for the toast elephants,
especially the wilful younger ones.

In between the horizon,
the forest branches
fell back into the sky,
waving as they went
until they dissolved into evening.
Yet, there was little end
to that walk
through the woods.

Not then and not now,
for as the stars
outlined pathways
to new beginnings and
branches to another time,
a recalled moment
swayed in the breeze.

There’s always a past memory
beckoning to be traced,
vying for attention
during the night’s approach.

And yet as I walked
between a former
celestial personality,
and an unseen future path,
I  felt even less compelled
to discard the direction
cast by my own inner moonlight,
and proceeded to follow
the outward thoughts
that have led me
through these particular
woods before.

Imagine a time
before you were born,
grandfathers and grandmothers
just twenty and onward.

“Do you notice that single star tonight?”
he whispered.

The night didn’t answer
except for a slipstream,

“Yes, you see it too?”

He thought of his next chance meeting,
she leant back from a window;
many years before they happened.

An unclouding of a name.
Next, the star was your mother,
the direction of another theme in kind;
it was so in father’s mind.

Another sky, another night,
under lamplight
trees burned autumn incense,
upward thoughts released the glow
of small similarities,
and you were found again.

Time flew
in the merest breeze,
and was borne up.
There was barely
lift for its fragile kite,
yet it continued on,
for it was, a movement itself.

It then altered
through spin
to become a balsa plane,
moved by the draw back
of diary scribbles;
it read of those,
and glided

to the ground
only to clearly resurface
as an unexpected desert spring,
for traveling
was its continual aim
as some water sought
refuge underground.

It then became sand
in a chasm hourglass
and each grain of each memory
knew then the upside,
downside turns
as they were sifted
to become
entirely other

than the breeze
that was once,
the upperground me.

Don’t dismiss
the unseen
or the seemingly
untrainable
dream.

For the wild winds
of imagined thought
once steered
and caught,

can push ships
with sails unfurled,
right to the other side

of the world.