September morning
Copyright - A McNaught

Moonshine

In the darkness of the room
A single patch of light
Like the footprint of an angel
Still warm,
Glowing with the residue of heaven.

We sat in the blackness,
Holding our fingers into the pearly photon stream
Smiling as our hands, irradiated white,
Transformed to glowing liquid light.

We spoke of moonshine;
Then I remembered...
There is no such thing as moonshine
Only sunshine reflecting from a dead and barren land.

If I can stand before Your streaming light
Then even my dry barrenness will burn with bright
Reflections of your grace.

Then darkness will illuminate
Despite my fears
Despite my cratered faith
Despite my pain.

And, like the gentle, silent moon
I'll rise again.

(c) A McN

Bracken

Bracken yellowing in the purple heather,
Too crisp for want of rain.

Crickets whirring like well oiled machines and blackberry scent on the air.

Time stolen to lie in the forest of fern fronds, beneath the underbelly of the breeze to ask nothing
Nor to need a reply.

Only to hold tight and close to life's beauty and mystery
And be strangely moved.

(c) A McN

North westerly airstream
Copyright - A McNaught

Strandline

I see the long white curl of breaker
Kiss the shore
And hear the deeply drinking shingle shiver,
Quiver coyly at the sea’s embrace.

Wave after wave the water
Laps affection on the land in foamed caresses
Growling passion in a gravel song and
Sighing softly back into the seaweed deeps.

And I think of all your daily waves of faithfulness
That wash our lives, the surging tides of love that
Ring compassionately round
The islands of our isolation.

I think of all your unseen flows
When we are cold and unaware
And yet your deep protective love is there
And mercy seeps incessant through our sands.

For I am shifting shingle with emotions tossed
And flung like grains before the storm.
I am not rock that firmly stands against the gale
But I am sand whose weak foundations fail.

But take me as I am and love me
With your ceaseless, selfless sea of grace and
Mould my sand beneath your hand and
Break me by your wave’s embrace.

Then make me, one day, your own playground shore
where your pure waves might run and surge and sing
for evermore.

(c) A McN

Maybe the ability to see such things is a type of madness or a type of gift, but there are times when the interplay of the inanimate - wind, rain, wave, sand - is as delicate, sensual and delightful as human love.

Harebell at prayer
Copyright - A McNaught

Ghost light

Grey light under a sheet of the finest silk drizzle;
Soft moist wind nuzzles the trees.
Everything filmed with water-shine.

Rosehip and hawthorn tight fleshed, swollen to bursting,
Pregnant with a summer long since gone.
A silver rain-bead dangles from each
Red, fat underbelly.

Dusk's dim ghost-light is spangled with
Bright water constellations
Shining under every berry, every yellow leaf. A million
Silver globes dangling;
Reflecting an inverted world
Far brighter than the one I see.

A million silent mirrors
marking me.

(c) A McN