Going..

Going
 
I burn into evening                 
where slow shadows burn low
where West shadows softly                 
pushing evening’s soft glow
where a speckled fish laughs   
laughter sparkles in pools
where a pool of bright light
makes fish spark like jewels.
 
I tuck eagre fingers
‘round a meagre flat rock
its beating heart rocks me
with a keen aftershock:
the rock forms a heart shape
and it shapes what I see.
Laughter spins upward ~ hooks
in the oak’s canopy.
 
The Oaks gaze in wonder
where the sky hooks my heart.
I’m sky-hooked in wonder
watching sky fires depart
while fires in the forests
match the fires in my heart
but I can’t remember
how those fires got their start.
 
I dream I am drowning
feel my lungs scream on fire
I lasso a sky fire
watch the evening expire.
 
And, now, I recall how
I felt about you, how
I waited for comfort
when my red heart turned blue.
But Blue is my colour
and Blue echoes this Light
with pristine effulgence
Blue Light shines through the night.
 
The hour overtakes me
and I stretch for The Field.
The Rumi inside me
whispers never to yield
for the yield of my crop
is the Power I wield.
So I make for the Field.
Will you be in the Field?
 
My Power mirrors your
Power, mirrors wide in
your wake ~ together, we
flow like a river to
the far side of the lake
“Don’t go” says the Giver
“lest you won’t stay awake:
there is so much at stake.”
 
We arrive at The Field
where we all choose and state
which badge will define us:
and how ‘strait is our gate’.
Will we journey our fate?
Perhaps fate makes for fools
like fish sparking jewels.
Are we constantly late?
 
We journey to wonders
and we cast for ‘Great Love’.
We hunt with proud eagles
and we nest with cowed doves.
Will ‘Great Love’ define us
as we enter The Field?
Can we ever combine
all the parts we must wield?
 
For, we’ve always been both
yes, again and again.
Invictus* recoils us
back to oaths after sin.
 
 And gentle the grey dove:
and embroiled was the hunt.
The hunt preys inside me
on the spoils of my heart.
 
When, gentle, the dove calls
will the eagle depart?
Will I yield my arrows?
Search for you in The Field?
 
Now night covers darkly
and the narrowing shade
discovers a chink in
the stark armour I made.
 
So, burn into evening              
where slow shadows burn low
where West shadows softly                 
pushing evening’s soft glow
where a speckled fish laughs   
laughter sparkles in pools
where a spark of bright light
makes fish spark like jewels.
 
 
 
 
by Barbara Helvey Hughes, 2020 for Peter McKinnon
* Invictus by Ernest Henley