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My column in this week’s Winkler Morden Voice & Altona Rhineland Voice

Stirring quietly one day

I noticed my mind wandered;

So silently and with stealth

I followed it at a distance

To see where it would go.

Never once did it walk

A straight or simple line

But around complex circles

Up hills and through valleys

It went and went and went

At times singing

At times shouting

Still other times soundless

Climbing trees

Crawling through bushes

But never did it rest

Until eventually I tired

And wandered back home

To wait for its return

And the story of its journey.

I heard sounds of joy

Coming from the radio

And I felt moving within

But the body refused them

And I lay motionless

While a torrent of happy

Spun me in hidden circles

Such that you could not tell

For i was a rock on a still shore

To each and every observer;

The spirit leaps laughing ahead

Pulling this reticent mortal coil along

Like a lazy dog hauled for a walk

Secretly loving the air in it’s ears

While wearing a mask of disdain

pain is a nebula glowing in space
beautiful remnant of a supernova
casting shadows on witnesses
as layers of past life rocket away
leaving you hollow in the middle
until perchace a new star forms
out of the coalescing fragments
that collapse back upon you

There is a consciousness

That sleeps with one eye open

Watchful for power corrupted

And wielded as a hammer

On the heads of the dispossessed;

When it awakens in reaction

It opens it’s mouth to howl

In rage, in protest, in solidarity

And it rises slowly but surely

To march like Ents on Orthanc

Tearing down desperate despots

Leaving the new order to others;

It is you

It is me

It is the tide of the sea

Cone to wash away the rot

And bring the good we’ve forgot.

You keep going
Until you don’t
You keep moving
Until you won’t
Breathing, Seeing, Living
A simple act of giving
Yourself to others
Yourself to yourself
And there is meaning
If you make it
And there is redeeming
If you take it
Everything is an act of will.
An emptiness you must fill.

What are you

But this improbable,

Impossible thread

Stretched through time

Entangled and enmeshed

With other impossibilities

Creating more implausabilities

For reasons beyond us

Or for none at all…

Astounding.

At the end of the fading day

With the sad setting sun

The world sheds colour

Leaving shades of grey

But all i have to do

Is look to the giving sky

And I still see blue

I’ve heard it said

You are too raw

Uncooked

We cannot digest you

You cut our lips

And the roof of our mouths

Your hard edges

They make us bleed

Like a cactus

Hidden among flowers