02/09/2021

Dreaming For A Future

We march for life

For our survival on an agile globe

For a receding reality, one fairer and greener

Something better than the world’s wealthy huddled together

In the dust and futility of their narrow horizons


All that is good in jeopardy that is the emergency


I pause for a drink, to quench my thirst

In that moment truly thankful for clean water to drink

Every sip is a portal to a well of worry where water is scarce

Even a glimmer of brevity sharply focuses the mind

Surge of panic amongst the colour throng

Breath shallow quick stalling

I fight for fresh air, to fill my lungs in a stubborn city

 

I think of womb you

A fragile whisper

This beautiful promise that already sends tremors across mummy’s tummy, your whole world

Alive yet unborn you wait to inherit the earth

Such an inheritance was never to exploit but cherish

A joining in with this exponential dance of teeming forms

An exchange of love


Are you dreaming of the future as you wait in there?


If nothing changes then by my age

Like so many already alive

You could be blighted by not enough food and the smallness of violence

A future at the mercy of water and fire

Put at risk by the very ground you stand on and the air you breathe

All the elements skewed against you by past generations

Things will shake you and rush you

try to tumble you and I tremble at the thought


The innocence of my youth was a luxury

Now we must strain for a world where all the trees of the wood rejoice

Where kindness can survive escalation and thrive

I want a world where we can hold each other’s gaze

I am heavy now with the weight of dread, the status quo

A fog pervades and the tide moves in

I held a sign

Oh I held a sign and stood in the way

The work won’t stop and its calling me

To imagine in higher definition and in new dimensions

Shoulder my fear and act out of love

30/08/2021

Oak tree

I watched as the evening sunlight laced 

Shadow patterns across your flank 

And I said,

‘But that is for me, what is for you?’

Sensing the truer half of a clumsy question 

You ushered me closer with compassion

I pressed my head against your bark

Hands on the rough grooves of life lived

A familiar pose.


In the emptiness behind my thoughts you somehow spoke

Shifting the channels of my mind to show me

That yours is;

An unutterable intimacy with all life

And a deep groundedness in the wholeness of things


My heart quickened

And

I was silent


06/07/2021

One rainy day

Today

The many doors of love

are open
And we frolic in the dancehall
of creation

Released from yesterday
No longer in the fear
of tomorrow
Free in the ocean
of a single moment

29/06/2021

Listening for secrets

The art of listening

Is a painting that never dries

And a dance that does not stop

Does that invoke enough arrival,

enough stillness?

The art of listening

Is music before the notes

 

The great work relies on desire

On longing

Yet tug too hard

All is lost

Strain and you cannot hear

 

What is it we listen for?

Honestly

For the sound of Okay-ness

A rounded yes

Sometimes known as bliss

Until like Kabir

You believe in the Great Sound.

28/04/2021

Leaden Tussle



Music - Jon Scott

Words and visuals - Tom Burgess