The stars

Elemental, momumental -
Pear drops from the big-bang sweet shop
Gravity's demonstrators:
Gigantic, titanic, galactic, dynamic
They watch a small earth through fireproof telescopes. 

Flung, as icing sugar in a cavernous cupboard
They are the batteries powering this huge charade
Piercing map-makers of fluorescent ink, 
Spaceship docks hewn of molten rocks. 
Cat's eyes for the great bear's nightly wanderings. 
Dayblind, sun-outshined, mediaeval sailor-kind
Rising, setting, breathing, dying
Glowing plankton in the whale of a sky.

Cosmological lampposts!
Show us the way - grab our attention upwards where it belongs. 

Numbing

What am I numbing with this bottle of wine
If there's nothing to numb anymore?
What would become of me
If I started to believe
The roomy gloomy spacious doom
Could lift?
Already befogged, I add to the fog
Willingly obliterating the remains,
The tiny remains of who I might be.

On being an atom in a storm

Purple, white, golden, yellow, black
Swirling, uncurling, speeding, gasping
Blasted by everlasting ephemeral winds:
Laughing, dancing, no responsibility
Part of glorious energy,
A millionth atom
In that tempest I danced and yelled,
Brutally upheld.

And the rest? 
The rest is of the earth.
The feet were down, the heart was high
The fingers wanting to feel and cry
To find the way to that place,
Of otherness, of covetous and desparate embraces.

To Esme

Show her she's loved, please
Do it for me. 
Indulge her
Confide in her
Proud of her -
Outwardly. 
Let her guide you to corners
Of what you don't know.
Encase her in love
Give space to her -please.

Trust her exploring
Entrust her, enrich her
Follow her eyes to the things that she sees
See her excitement and capture her victories;
Draw from her energy
Beauty's dismantler,
Breathe when she breathes
And show her she's loved, please -
Do it for me.

Fragmented / What could have been

Pathways blocked, senses docked
Waiting for the truth to start.
Hair bobbed
Eyes Chinese
Face of porcelain. 
Do you change and rearrange?
Does history give you extra beauty?

Paths are started, ways divided - 
What could have happened to you?
A scientist? An architect? A friend? A mother? 
DNA unlike another. 
Fluid memories, out of reach
Dreams of wading, drowning, screaming
Bullied by the odd surroundings:
I craved the obliteration you were granted
And remembered for. 

She turned and smiled
She stayed and played -
The memory fades, the memories change
I am adrift, unguided, and the fragments crave some familiar glue.

The tree

Shade-provider, light-divider
Thatcher of the forest floor
Reaching your non-human hands
Whilst centred deeply underground. 
Twisted, curling, tangling, rooted -
Magnificently unaware
You are our oxygen machine,
The dancing partner of the wind. 
Zen-like, upright, curvy, swervy -
You are our future furniture. 
I am jealous of your roots. 

The Skyrian Owl

What makes the sound
That wakes me up? - the unseen sound
Its depth; it talks; it cannot talk
I close my mind and find the place
Where a half-moonlit owl exists and there's
The same - the need to speak - 
To seek - 
The longed-for echo
Of your sound
To prove you're there:
I wait for his reply, and then I sleep.