homelands

the august light is dimming earlier these days and the mirror on the floor reflects the window back at itself. i feel a slight sense of panic that all the books are in boxes taped and labelled. im wondering if they can breathe. i picture the shape of their names down their spines; a hundred stories of transitions, not ends. there are still poems in the creases in my bed sheets that im holding off washing until i leave. when it comes to goodbye, i will kiss these walls that stood and stand like silent witnesses having seen me shine and break and render this room small enough to carry, along with all the others that somehow fit together in this ramshackle wondrous home that is me.

(metaphorically speaking)

"deep in their roots, all flowers keep the light"

~ thoedore roethke

eight moments. this week. my eyes

as ever a love of light and shadow, especially those created by trees. the intricate lace of giant cobwebs made gold in the sunshine. getting ready for the next chapter. pre-dusk spires against the sky. traces of old places. stories brought to life in a single image. scarabs and broken things... wabi sabi maybe. and my last week of this morning view.

not scattered on the wind

are the ancestors

whose memories swim

through veins

approving

of the not always

silent passage,

of being pulled back

into the body

whilst retaining the ability

to see beyond

on the journey

to oneself

which is, ultimately,

composed

of many more than one.


 a wordless alternative, perhaps

threadless, here i go

all the fires rage, but burn with a slower pulse. i see the light in which i want to dance and lament no longer the idea of the passing of my youth with it's sublime arrogance and naivety. we grow like matryoshka dolls. like tree rings. ever upwards and out. nothing is discarded. there is only growth. and layers.

of the things that really matter people rarely speak. perhaps you would disclose the details of the first heart you held in tentative, greedy hands, but what about all the yous you do and don't present to the world. the combination, contradictions and division of your selves. the way you count the memories you will never have and paint them down your chest in those shadowy places where night leaks through the curtains and you scrape it all together in the hope something will make sense. the way you struggle sometimes to follow your own lead, your own hidden ways through the ever growing noise of trivialities to hear the drum to which your feet beat the earth in time with it's rhythm. your rhythm.

dance. be reminded of the splendour concealled in all the colours and chemicals and cosmoses your body contains. read the weather, the seasons, the poets, the rise and fall of longings. read the signs that point to everything that makes your heart swell. those things we know for certain are few, but that is the beauty. loosen your grip and breathe. make of it what you will, but do not blame insecurities on the restless things. they were born to move.

a journey, a map, a route through the city captured in rooftops on a morning when the smog cleared and no one could have painted the sky any more perfect