birthday promise

birthday promise

Fire-walking, cloud-walking, sea-walking dream…

I.
a wilderness
of rose
catches
the nor’westerly
over the
arch.
wire
shrivelled
amongst root.
thorn
hardens against
the summer,
evermindful
the cold.

II.
clouds beached
upon
the
evening.
you camp amidst
the dull surround
of dream –
cloud-walking,
fire-walking,
wavelets muffled
beneath your toes
sea-walking
dream: petal
of your heart’s
wild gravity.
divine the
dawn afresh.
a remnant moon
bleached coral
above the west.

III.
there is a wind
unleaved through
the garden.
a history of deserts,
towers, books vignetted
with gold’s blood
you reckon your
path by that
wind, certain of
the daytime
stars.

november 1982

Taken from my own collection ‘street hung with daylit moon’ published 1986. Acknowledgements to Chamaeleon Press

The music is from a performance of Franz Schubert’s, Trio No. 2, Op. 100, Andante con moto by Ambroise Aubrun, violin, Maëlle Vilbert, cello and Julien Hanck, piano on 12/12/2016 at Cathédrale Sainte-Croix des Arméniens, Paris.