Thistledown

A white light bleaching the landscape colours, shimmering the distant haze with heat.
Grass crackles underfoot, rasping like straw and the cool dark sombreros of the trees are
limp leaved in the oven breath of summer.

Then I saw deep drifts of thistledown, a candyfloss as light as snow with
crystal geometries as delicate and fine .

I fling soft fistfuls to the warm receptive air. Each spidered seed weaves stiches
round the contours of the wind. The liquid air reforms behind the tumbling path.

I cannot help but be a child again, stretching to pluck the silver spheres from empty air, chasing the feathered dreams of future fruitfulness.

In a summer season let
the gracious breath of God blow warm
and gentle on my dry and brittle soul.

Animate the insubstantial lightness of my faith
that though my roots on earth may never hold me firm
I might yet trust the hidden urgings of the air to lead me on.

(c) A McN


A short walk squeezed into a busy day and the mind in overdrive. It is as if I scarcely live but only grasp at straws of meaning on time's treadmill. Then something awakens the child within and time is elastic, experience vital, life reborn.