O birdsong on the morning wind, how I
missed you. You gracious bells, and pleasant chimes,
You stage of love and strife and wittering,
When times were no less simple still, but I
a simpler man, a boy in homely fields,
You come to me again when without sleep,
I come to you again when strange dreams writhe,
Afresh, I'm human in His light and song.

Droplets on the glass descend,
Tell a tired tale too told,
But perhaps it is for good?

Their transience is spent in wealth,
Prismatic they do taste each hue,
Put on the storied melodrama,
Of cozy days and soulful tunes.

Heavensent they fall, earthen pull the skies,
Entwined in shiny reveries they make,
The feuding brothers meet.

The fall of worlds and folding into one,
Swift threads of glass make all a fragile loom,
Busybodied to the heights they run,
So meeting every elegance with gloom.

Something about the death in life,
Passing petals waning fanfare,
To the harmony of soft frames,
Robed in light wreathed in green,
The trees look young in their old age.

A carefree day in many words,
Much speaking turns into hearing,
Much hearing to a short reply,
A short reply to lengthy trails:
Out through the misty hills,
Among stark streams and evergreens,
Besides the clamour of the birds,
By falling petals and young shoots,
To fig and empty court. My prayer -
That it would be a seed by grace.

The shards of fallen sky avail themselves,
Raving beasts to dine upon the tumult,
With roars and bursts of light are torn in rage,
Fall upon the napes of trembling trees,
Clatter to the unmoved earth -
Impotent, they are subsumed.

Wilting petals strewn among the slabs,
Swiftly on, the world in marching green,
Turns away, shreds charred-purpled tears,
Breaks the silence for the laughter of birds.

Escape to tulip fields,
A gentle sea of watercolour bulbs,
The depths in inky blue,
The heights a sunset multitude.

Walking quiet country fields,
Soft shades in polished greens,
The limit of the trees bleeds out,
An elevated blue to brave the sun.

Confronted with a lofty ray,
Tugging out all nascent life,
From buds and verdant fields afresh,
The air is elevated at its coming,
The golden hues so tender pull
The truest colours of the reeds,
And dance in robes of white on gentle streams.

The eager pictures fall behind,
They took a lightness on my eyes,
Now heavy lids make days draw quick,
Walk heedless weary 'neath the sun,

Beside the swollen grass and waning stalks,
Beat on in pulses as the vigor of my heart,
Rescind the rain to call the summer glaze,

A squabbled scene of green to find,
Which lasts beyond all strength of spring,
Alas the eager pictures will return at dawn,
To test I last beyond all strength of spring.

A poem for the road,
Away from rainy Westland,
Amidst the bold assertions of the sun,
Between the blowing bouts of rain,
Beside the verdant countryside again,
Becoming deeper entrenched in vibrant reality,
Culminating in great golden fields,
Crossing by the grassy hills like sleeping giants,
Creasing hills into their lumpy folds.

The texture of an open space,
The vacant sky and distant blue,
Flows into hazy beams of light,
That shatter on the reeds and grass,
A tugging but withdrawing ache,
A refreshing breeze to season such a place,
The open world - that homely countryside,
Perhaps I'll long for you in time,
When I am far beneath a convoluted sky,
This place of youth and open land,
This blessed texture for a distant time perhaps.

The chirping birds frame trees in sound,
Now here we stand when Grace abound,
In these I see a glory woven,
My purchase at the seat of God,
His body taut on wood and shame,
Divisions broken at His name,
I see the thick oil painterly clouds,
It's beauty now to me so rich,
For all is mine for I am His,
Now He is mine, what more is this?

Deeper, deeper blue,
Like evening sky in waning winter,
When the sky is thick but lighter,
A rolling scene of scattered hue,
Absent of stars or sun or moon,
Alone the wind a hallowed tune,
Comes drawn across the sky in lieu,
Makes firm the navy waves,
Marks out a flashing bright enclave,
A whistle in the deeper blue.

Outside a misty dress this April rain,
Ebbs light and soft upon the window pane,
Drapes fit the form of day in ponderous grey,
Then frills of light and weaving spikes array,

Pretty flowers upon glass leaves do sway,
Take firm the droplets for a coat to stay,
The wind a brash caress that turned away,
Found solace by the bulwark - April Rain.

O golden haze ephemeral,
I see you drift by mud slick roots,
Come watch the weary leaves turn bright,
Amber emerald in the gorgeous rays,
Like precious gems and golden drops,
Such beauty and high majesty,
To turn the wilting shrubs to glass,
To temper them like bronze in biting winds,
This golden haze that marks the air,
That causes springly birds to sing.

Sitting in the sunny grass,
And the urban sprawl lies sandwiched in my sight between,
The rolling hedges and the ocean line,
It frays the sky - its roots upended,
And holds its peace below the clouds,
Sharper than a razor's edge,
And laying here the grass imprinted,
My gaze procured in sunny fields.

Marbled sky,
And the muted clouds seem to scar the horizon,
They reach up and paint the sky in a tumult of blues,
And the open air is devoured by roaming teals.

Tiles sit sunken in their earthen thrones,
Marbled and mottled with spots of yellow and faded greys like elderly skin,
Beyond the grass bristles,
Youthful in the roaring wind,
And the world falls silent to the deafening whistle of the afternoon breeze,
And in the face of ceaseless squall the grass is greener in my sight,
And the quiet chatter merges with the birdsong,
All fades into the recesses of the soundscape,
And the moment seems to stretch on contentedly.

Stormy day,
Solemn on the raining wings of mourning clouds,
They chase the wind like rolling flood dragons,
Blotting out the sky with their sublime scales,
And a small being walks,
Awestruck underneath the mourning clouds,
That's a pretty sober spectacle, Dad.

Pale Emperor of the winding wood,
Your kingdom abounds in brash bristles,
Taming the rippling mud hills,
You grasp the light and steal the shadows,
All falls dim in paling fields,
And in your calmest annunciation,
You whisper songs of palest moonlight,
That measure through the breadth of this land,
Yet I'll see you soon in withered dust,
For one domain prevails at last,
And flimsy flowers grow prideful in their wilting ways.