Thistledown

Bubbles of thistledown.
Fragile fruit of a summer's growing;
I watched them, a loose flock flying high,
sliding on slivers of sunbeam in the cool, clear autumn air.

What is fruitfulness?
The statuesque rigidity of thistle stem?
The wiry beauty of spiked resilience defying season's turning?

Or is the fruit the dry and shriveled seed;
the secret store of potencies
distilled from alchemies of life?

When the winds come they will scatter and fell:
seeds to fly and stems to fall.
But all will lead to life.

Fallen stems will fertilise,
fallen seeds will vitalise.
True life is never wasted;
when it out-manoeuvres death.

But there must be no randomness,
no blind chances,
no cold mechanics of evolving.

Behind the season's turning is the contemplative love
that counts the hairs on heads,
and sparrows in the air,
that the names the stars
and clothes the field with colourings
beyond compare.

Such love longs for a shepherding
of life into new life

For a singing through death's valley
and remembering of summer songs
that will be needed
at a future time.

(c) A Mc N