The old oak tree on mulberry Road, blossoms with The purity and light of some Long lost childhood wonders. It’s great roots burrow Into the Earth pike greedy fingers Searching for trolls. They weave through the soil Like the stringy fragments Of a shattered soul. It’s great branches hold up Young to the caping of the Ever-watching sky, Forever above the ever-sleeping Placid bones below. It was planted there in my youth And like its roots, I search for my place in this great Open expanse if a world. I grow, it grows. I move, it moves. I sigh, it sighs. And together we live as if One.

I must confess, I’m afraid of loving you, My dearest, For you are like the sea And I am drowning With every tide you tug me closer To your closed heart. I’m trapped in the net of Heart strings that taunt me. You leave me coughing And spluttering so violently In your destructive wake. Bubbling to the surface Of promise and lore… I confess I am scared to love you, For you are like a flame, So turbulent and passionate In your way, I breathe you, I choke you, Black soot runs from my eyes Like the promise of a cold winter. I confess that I cannot love you For you are like the charred earth Beneath my feet, So strong and yet so treacherous As you shake with might, will And need. No greenery grazes your failing Flesh, only the lost and fading Eden of what could have Been, yet you Are greed scorched. Alas I confess to you, I will always love you, As one can love the wind, So cold and dewed with frost. My bitten soul shivered in Silent solitude.

It feels like falling Hard into the unplowed ground Drowning in the dirt Alone and choking on mud Yet I will still grow for you

I went to catch a star tonight, A ladder, some rope, a jar for my light. I wandered through the forest, Blue, And found a great old oak tree who, Spoke to me with leafy mutters, And conversed with the ash that mutters, Words to help me on my way, I listened to the things he had to say. I took that rope and made a loop, And went up to he branches, droop Into the sky, The sky dripped by. I, as a thief would do, Robbed the heavens of lights who Burned with passionate purity And I will an undeserved surety. The sky full of stars seemed dead and cold A place so magical now hurt to behold

The final moment before Life changes forever And surety slips out of sight And mind like the Lingering smoke of a Perishing candle. That last silence before war’s end As biting bullets cease tiger Endless arguments in Breathless anticipation. That waiting for the truth To come out and spread its Delicate wings, Will it flying to the summit Of our long-dying Earth Or fall like Daedalus’ foolish son Who stole the breeze and tamed A tamed a sky destined to Remain wild. How his father must of waited, Like men wait, Hungover with expectation… Moments that last forever.

There it is again, That dreadful silence. When all lights seem to Go out, All ties to the life you knew Snap under unbearable tension.

That absent place, That was once so often consumed By the gentle breath of youth, Lays desolate and lonely, Breathless solitude.

Save me, call for me… Let thy mountains shudder with Mighty song, Luring me from where I lie Entangled in the base of its roots.

What I would give for a sigh-plagued Lung of air to kiss me, Or to hear the final note of a falling leaf, Or the harsh trill of a starling’s call, Or your voice, at the end of the pier, Joining mine in morbid reply Instead of the response you left me with…. Oh, that dreadful silence…

It came again, The rain, the rain… From somewhere, alone, far yonder.

I ran to you, And I knew, I knew… I would wait, alone, to ponder.

And when you leave, It seems, it seems That I am left, alone, to wander.

Tip tap, The rain came back…

From far yonder Over dreary hill.

Clip clap, Old Tobyn is back…

A horse-draw carriages, That has lost its wheels.

It was a cold winter night, some frost-choked December eve. Don’t ask me when, For I don’t remember, But the fire took in great breaths Of smouldering sparks As it drew to its nigh end.

I woke up, but you weren’t there.

I suppose a part of me expected it. Part of me knew that You had left some time in the night Leaving cowardly footsteps In your snow-foamed wake. I don’t blame you for slyly Slipping into the biting embrace Of the waking night without Rousing me from my slumber. I suppose now if I asked you, Well if I could ask you, You would blame an idle compassion That burned somewhere deep beneath your heart, As if leaving me to slumber in My lasting sleep was a Merciful act of kindness.

But still, I woke alone.

After all that’s said and done, I still love you: I love you as the crow flies east To find a new moon to hunt Or as a sparrow drifts south Looking for the new harvests.

I love you as the trees grow red In under Autumn’s waning gaze, as the flowers of spring shiver Under winter’s clinging frost.

I love you as the stars dance in the heavens As long summer nights slowly seep to Their end.

I love you like the snow loves to melt In the breeze over an open, pulsing fire. I love you with the terrible fever of A restless July evening, With the frost-bitten throng of an October toad’s call, With the open harrows of a looming spring Or the shaken embrace of a harsh winter.