It is here

That beautiful thing

Moving like a shadow

In my periphery

It dances through slanting blinds

At dawn, it is draped across the horizon

A brilliant orange

Blue

Pink

Behind me as I run

Toward a new sun

Still rising

A cluster of butterflies

The smell of earth

And later the golden grass

A paddock of shadows

Waving as one pattern,

like fur moving when rubbed

It is the feeling of awe

And then it is silence

No words at all

The same in grief

And when paralysed with fear

Or when the world falls quiet

just before dawn

Or sometimes it is a cacophony of words

Squawking

Too many to choose from

Or is that just me?

Yes

Because when IT speaks

I cannot write fast enough

And when I stop

It is in joy

Love

My heart beating fast

I may be deep in a task

Yet I would drop anything

Anyone

To write what it says

Follow where it goes

Holy

Spirit

speaks

And I listen

For some it is a paintbrush

And I’ve been there too

But I prefer the sharp spell of words

Telling me

Falling into sentences

Words

Life unfurls

And I watch it

Moth to flame

Poet to name

Describe

This beautiful thing

That loves me

Singing

Energy dancing

There

In my periphery

Just out of reach

In the gap

Between

Unknowable

Unnameable

And me

I could spend the rest of my life chasing it

Or leave it be

As a mystery

I know is just here

Nothing to grasp

Or point to

The only evidence that it has been

Art

Where once there was a blank sheet

Filling with ink

From something not me

Moving beside me

Just out of reach

Grey

Gold

White

Yellow

Flash

A fairy wrens eyelash

Palm of my hand

Empathy for the bent and bowed old man

And feeling a sudden rush

Of deepest love

Almost more than I can bear

In a small crickets chest

As it leaps

Lands at my feet

And then leaps again

Coiled springs releasing

And why would it be there?

Because we are connected to everything

And everything to us

Me

It

But only for that one ecstatic storm chasing moment

The lightening arcs

And lands

Riveting

The rest of the time it’s a hand out of reach

I wear it like a coat of sunshine

Gratefully

And hope it won’t go astray

I can’t carefully fold it and tuck it away

It’s not for hoarding

Or storing

It’s not even mine

But if I use it constantly

It will hang around

Like light

And goosebumps

The intangible memory of a delicious meal

Eaten in a dream

Five minutes

Before I am awake

A conversation with Mum

That I couldn’t have had

She was so sad

I woke up with tears on my cheeks

If that was dreaming

So is this

Craft.

A life lived with poetry

Strewn with meaning

Constantly weaving

A coat of sunshine

Not quite mine

But I can wear it

For this blessed moment in eternal time

I can wear it

But it isn’t mine

Small girl

Red umbrella

Against a blue sky

Why?

Because you didn’t see her either

Until I wrote the words

And now you can’t unsee her

Walking

With a red umbrella

Blue sky above

Why an umbrella

It’s not raining?

Ha! I know me neither

Love.

What an incredible feeling.