Month: August 2020

Speak kindly to me,
softly, like the cloud
ushered by the night
breeze across the face
of the moon; speak
kindly, for soon it
will be morning.

I have no one to share
your secrets with, no
faces in the flicker
of your shadow to
assure me I am not
alone; dear moon,
please stand guard
outside my room.

He said the tone of the home
was in the heat of the flame
that sits in the hearth;
it was in the smile of the heart
that knew when to weep,
that knew when to laugh.

On the banks of the Aorere River,
in the last sunlight of the evening,
the whitebaiter casts his eye across
the still water, across the white spotter,
smiles, and slowly scoops his net.

You crucify my beliefs
but they refuse to die,
for they were born
before the lie was written,
before the darkness
gave way to the dawn.

When the road becomes a narrow way
and few there be upon it, the silenced
voice becomes an outlaw, hounded
from the shadows, driven deep into the
undergrowth, hidden by the light.

The silver-grey cloud is hanging
like a bridal train down the steep
sides of the valley, the rock altar
is draped in waterfall mist and the
song is too deep for a heart to keep.

It’s a long road up the valley where
every winding corner turns on a bed
of gravel and a lonely man has got
to make it on his own, past the fire
of the burnt over stones.

Addiction was hell,
rang time like a cracked bell,
silenced the song,
left nothing to tell.