The dead of night
A great sea turtle was dying.
All its life it had known the dark existence of hidden depths.
Now as life ebbed away the creature felt the final
stirrings of aspirations. Towards the dry land and shining moon it
moved until deep in the night it lay dead on the sand of the shore.
A great weight of plate and cold jelly flesh washed by the lapping sea.
By the light of the March moon - the light that had attracted the innermost essence of the turtle -
a man wandering with his faces saw the dark shape lying there.
An eerie blubbery eye that did not move in the straight ahead face.
Man found the turtle. What the creature sensed as its final goal,
the perfection of evolution, in which process she was
merely an early marker.
At first awed, then exploring, the man heaved the heavy shell and prodded the cold flesh.
Until satisfied the creature was dead.
But did the creature live to see the reflected light of the moon?
Colva Beach, Goa, India
From The Sphere of the Moon Goddess
There are now attempts to protect turtles laying their eggs along this beach, the 4th longest in the world.
Back to index
Emily Beauchamp
Oh, I'm sitting with a banjo
A banjo on my knee
And I'll be up in heaven
By the time you count to three.
Once there was a war
A very long war.
'Bang, bang, you're dead!' we said
'Let's go up the park.'
'I remember you in a playpen,
leaning through to pick the raspberries,'
In the summer
The garden was lovely.
Two rooms, big and rather dark
Putting together things for a home
'When the ship comes sailing in
You'll get to meet your dad.'
This is our room, the rest of the house is hers
The garden is for the dog
And cat to play
The weatherman has come out with a raincoat.
Cavernous rooms, like an old baronial hall
She is the last of her line
The Beauchamps from Normandy
Are not to be anymore.
'Poor mite, growing up in a war torn world,
Take what you can, rebuild
The years change everything
If you want them to.'
She married Bill in the old church
When he was seventy
Emily's line was come to an end
Bill was dead, Emily was dead
After passing on what she could.
'Be kind, be happy, believe in people.'
The war took away her men
And so her children.
'Be thankful you got away with your life.'
Flowers in the garden
It is again summer
Sweet little rock n roller
She was only sixteen.
Once.
You're soon dead. Isn't it a joke?
'Have a drink, have a drink
Have a drink on me,
Everybody have a drink on me
Emily Beauchamp is gone
And you won't see her kind again.
'I was reading my horoscope
And knew you would come.'
The two rooms were ours
In the big baronial hall
Life is a banquet
And if you're not invited to the feast - gatecrash
Life is very simple.
From Another world
Back to index
The New Age
Twenty five revolutions of the sun!
The seeds are all sown.
What shall be from what has been.
The long stalemate between
My wishes, their expectations
Resolved.
Irresistibly, compulsively
I was drawn to the continent - old - of India,
On this birthday
After the darkest night of the Hindu Year
I have intimations.
Six twenty five.
The rising sun beams
Filtering through trees
Falling on a desk of wood in the open
Birds cooing cawing carouselling.
It has all been prepared...till now.
The mightiest mountain masses
Divide the old from the new East
For five months I have travelled
Up and down, in and out
Of the proud Himalayas,
Among the peoples and tribes
Of so old India
Of Afghanistan, Kashmir, Pakistan, Nepal,
The Pathans, the Guchhi, the Ladakhi,
The Hindus, the Moslems,
The Chinese, the Tibetans, the man from Burma,
The Buddhists, the Christians.
Soon all is to change
In this land India
The civilisation that has grown and sown the seeds.
The waiting is no more
Across the land masses the old
Gives inexorably way
To the new, the fresh
The buds of new man
New civilisation
From forest to savannah, from cave to slave, from monarch and peasant
To bourgeois, to democrat, to new man.
Slowly the scale and slime of time
Is shaken loose
The cinder of ages moves towards the sea
The choked mass of burnt out flame slides across the land
Falls off cliffs, flops into the ebbing flowing ocean.
The land smarts in the sunshine, breathes
it is so good to breath again.
The growth begins, the land a fertile green.
Everywhere different, everywhere the same
Old growth stunts in the wilderness
Of the swirling maelstroms.
At every corner of the sea the plants thrive
Burst towards the sun.
The seeds flew to the antipodes and poles
Nothing is as it seemed.
Past glories rehearsals for this staggering
Display of life, trooping of the colour,
The true, the beautiful, the real, is.
Some islands were expected to have the seed.
Britain yes, but America thrives exultant,
Australia, Switzerland and Japan
The tip of Africa, the peninsula of old Indo-China
The land of the tao, the sage,
People's revolution, China
There the seeds have been sown
The hugest lands of Russia
Show slow their steady growth.
On a birthday, a new world.
We always knew it was so
Anything is possible
Only our dreams too small
Man is born anew.
From India the seeds thrown
Have blown, grown.
They grow and grow and grow.
From The Sphere of the Moon Goddess
Beas, the Punjab, India.
Back to index
Goodbye
You do not know how the feather came to earth
The colours shine and glow, tell of noble birth
With such line and grace and light it must be of the sky
You know there are nobler lands than those that meet the eye.
You know and will not tell, cannot remember in fire of hell
Escape in the lake's quiet, feel the waters swell
All around the faces look with praeternatural glow
On your voyage of discovery more and more will show.
Higher and higher into the sky beyond this side
How you look is how you see the ever flowing tide
Love is the beginning, the end, the dreams mend
your broken hopes, the wealth you foolishly spend.
As long as you want, every vanity to destroy
An age upon an age is a drop, a moment's ploy.
What comes at the end is what was begun in the beginning
Love is who you are, you know, should be singing.
And yet you creep about with the slugs in the mire
Till one day, a feather left, evaporated desire.
From The Sphere of the Moon Goddess
Beas, the Punjab, India.
Back to index