Blue wind

This wind full of sheets of rain

pounds the house

as waves pound a cliff face,

and the air fills with the red roar of sea horses,

bucking blue and green as the deeps,

always too elusive to catch

in these sodden meadows

even with the eye of longing.

Dreaming blue

Day six of OctPoWriMo and the theme is blue. Predictably, there will be blue horses.

 

Planet earth,

the endless summer sky,

a sun-spread chicory flower,

a secret blackbird’s egg,

a southern sea seen from white clifftop,

my mother’s eyes,

the pearly haze early morning when the sun comes up,

bright jay feathers,

the colour that enrobes the calmest dreams

and gallops them across green fields.

All this blue,

and like blue water it trickles through our careless fingers,

because there is nothing we will do to keep it

from seeping into desert sand.

Where stars unstick and fall

Another illustration from the book, ‘The Story of the Sun, the Moon and the Stars’ inspired this cascade poem. My eyes are still full of the night sky of the countryside, so full of stars there’s hardly any darkness.

To go where stars unstick and fall,

And catch a fragment in the hand,

Star horses in celestial fields.

 

Into the night without a light,

I swoop and soar a rocket ship,

To go where stars unstick and fall.

 

My dearest wish to catch the tails,

Of comets shooting through the void

And catch a fragment in the hand.

 

Burning bright, the sky’s alight,

With falling stars of splendid dreams,

Star horses in celestial fields.

One sentence story #12

Painting Franz Marc

She watched, entranced, as they danced about, all long gawky limbs with the promise of adult grace, and wondered at the lost world that had once bred such creatures.

If wishes were horses

If wishes were horses, would I have a whole herd galloping across a wide green plain? Or would I have one single magnificent animal, the distillation of all that is wild and spontaneous, perfect down to its tiniest imperfections?

Wishes and dreams are what keep us looking forward to tomorrow, help us shrug off the daily greyness of jobs that must be done. Beyond is the green plain of running horses, sometimes shrouded in mist, or seen through veils of rain, but always there in its intangible beauty.

I have my glorious dreams, sometimes a riot of them, sometimes a single brilliant star of a dream. And even if they are like bright water slipping between my fingers, I still follow where they run.

Pity is what I feel, but can never voice, for the friend who keeps a spotless house for husband and children, and follows where her husband’s personal star leads. She is happy, she says, to move and see new places, to keep a spotless home in exotic towns in faraway countries. But I can only imagine the blankness in her heart behind the smile of satisfaction. Time stands still for no one, and soon the dreams, if they come at all, will come too late.

One day, I will catch up with my dreams, running with a herd of wild horses across a green plain.