Crumpled parchment
Brittle translucent
Silently compliant and dissolving into death
The breathe of life blowing dandelion seeds into the wind
Tumbling lightly on this earth with carefree abandon
The delight of tenacious spirit holding on to the joy of being alive
Of being human.

A spiritual light housed in a skeleton lamp of sinew, bone and a little flesh
The eternal spark burning more brightly as the body slips away
Leaving the indomitable spirit
Naked in its brightness
A defiance to death’s puny grasp
A giggle into its inevitable embrace.

A light that isn’t doused but rather wends its merry way
Into the memory of our mind
Daisy chained to those who have gone before
And those who are still behind
Dancing fairy lights into the glade of night
A glided teasing invitation to join Immortality
And snuff goodbye to Time.

Kite Surfing Tramore, Co. Waterford, Ireland December 2014

Icarus Freedom
Is a place to be
Icarus Freedom
Appeals to me

Lifting from earth
With a heart so strong
Open and empty
Knowing nothing is wrong

Energy coursing
Through energy’s veins
Breathing and heaving
Holding life’s reins

Roaring vibration
Drowning out sound
Pumping the pistons
Leaving the ground

Becoming a bird
Is a God-like feat
The rush of creation
A feeling so sweet

Remembering the myth
And the folly of man
The sun is a decoy
Not the end of the plan

The waxing and waning
Is life’s ebb and flow
Holding and hovering
The goal of the show

Icarus freedom
Is each moment in life
That I lift my vibration
And soar like a kite

To glide on the thermals
Between heaven and earth
Claiming the space
Where wisdom unfurls

The Wishing Thorn

Moody, muddy day under foot
Scudding clouds trailing dark tendrils
Of dirty mist, moist and mournful
Over this February afternoon
Scraggy daws and silly seagulls
A cacophony of scavengers
Lording it over this fallow field
Sadly shredded plastic bags and crumpled cans
Forlorn and loitering, typical blackthorn winter
Its darkness heralding incipient Spring
Skittish skirts of delicate blossom
Mark out an aisle down Wormwood Scrubs
The bride to be nervously giggling in the wings
Watching slow motion awakening
Of early catkins in the wind
And fur soft budding on bare branches
One by one the guests appear
Patiently waiting nature’s unfolding
And the wedding of life and death.

This poem was inspired by a walk on Wormwood Scrubs on February 23rd where splashs of white flowering bushes remind me that Spring is not far away.  A little research seems to indicate that the blossom is that of the blackthorn bush or coll

The Wishing Thorn is a deciduous, thorny shrub native to Britian. It is the ancestor of the cultivated plum and it’s blue-black berries are the sloes of sloe-gin. Typically it flowers March – April but flowerings have been sighted since January this year according to the wonderful Nature’s Calendar website

The blackthorn stem was used to make traditional Irish shillelaghs – walking stick weapons, magical and divining wands.  Symbolically it is considered a sign of life and death together as the flowers appear when the stems are bare and there is an old superstion that to bring blackthorn into the home was a harbringer of death.  The spell of bad weather that often coincides with blackthorn flowering is known as a ‘blackthorn winter’