Crows dreaming

A long train journey slid from day to dusk to night
and a full moon hung in the trees like a snagged balloon.

Hunched over the laptop glow
my world spiralled down to a carriage,
a seat, a document, an email.

In the tyranny of work without end
life's flavours drained down;
colours faded; feelings fell away.

Then, coming out the station,
breathing the bigger world beyond, imagination reinflated with a sigh.
The moon was high, still caught in the cobweb laceries of tree.
It hung black crow's nests in bright silver frames.

I listened for the cough and caw of crow
but all I heard was the traffic drone
and the feather breath
of a dreaming bird
and the March air soft and
scented by the sea.

The road was a noisy tide subsiding -
interweaving lines of light
ebbing red and flowing green
as traffic trickled through the night.

High in the trees
the bird breath waxed and waned
to the lullaby wind and its tumbling tones
and the bird veins beat with a blood as old as stones.

And the dreams of the crows ran deep;
deep as the roots of the cradling trees;
deep as the earth's fond memories of dark and noiseless nights
before the roads ran sour with fumes and glare:
when only the dreams of birds and trees
troubled the evening air.

(c) A McN


I often marvel at the way life intrudes into our dullness so vividly and unexpectedly in the thinnest sliver of a moment. If I could identify the magic formula and repeat it at will I'd live more richly.

If I could bottle it I'd be rich in the other way as well!