Glow worms

We walked out in a dark, fern-fronded wood,
a place to try your tears and let the cool pine-fragranced air
purify your broken spirit like an incense for the soul.
The path snaked in the dark tangle of
jumbled shapes of trees and scrub,
rock and heather, crag and stream.

From the formless chaos of a thousand shadowed shapes
imagination spawned grotesque
menageries of fear that lapped against
the narrow passage of the path,
mirroring the misery
of condemnatory demands
that echoed still in whispered
accusations in your head.

Then a single point of pure illumination pierced the darkness;
calm and confident it shone as if a
fledgling star had fallen from a nest and crawled
with patience through the undergrowth
until it reached the sky again.

Tiny as it was it lit a hope beyond its size.
In all the jumbled chaos of our hearts
where words are misconstrued and motives all maligned,
the tiny light of love can still be beautiful indeed...

And though our self-esteem
feels like a beetle crawling in the night,
our worth is like a fledgeling star,
a diamond in the dark.


(c) A McN
 
 
When we needed them, the glow worms were there. Half a dozen or more illuminated our walk at a dark time when the misery of others had been heaped on us when we were least able to absorb it.

Eraser

On a morning's stillness,
Hung between the seagull's cries,
The lick of water tongues on sand is soundless beauty
where the steaming, gleaming
sun sings symphonies
of molten music
on the rippled shore.


I try to guess the tide's intention as it
dallies with each sliding wave.
Some touch my boot and chuckle round my foot
but others shed their shining skin and drown
as unseen suction pulls them down.


My footprints linger for a little while,
Bronze castings in the morning light,
until a breath of tide glides far beyond
the limits of the strand
to claim new markers
on the glistening sand.

In silence all my signs erase.

I wish in all things to be one with you,
For all my marks to be remoulded by your waves,
For all my faults to be refashioned by your grace.


(c) A McN

Starchild

Not a molecule there is
But once was bright star substance
Shining in a universe of old.


And even we
(with all the dull utility
Of flesh and bone)
Even we once shone
And graced an ancient night
In galaxies before our own.


So when I laid you in your cot tonight
And marble moonlight glazed your skin with silver leaf
I left the curtains open to the sky;
unwilling to disturb the moonglow's magic on your face.


Ghostly it was, and you transformed before my eyes;
Starchild.
Creature of heaven; milkwhite in darkness.
The cot cast zebra shadows on your frame.


I shut the window lest you float outside,
riding the moonbeams home while I was turned away.


Tiptoed, I left the room
But could not shake the hauntings from my mind,
The memories imagined from another world, another time
When heaven's light was part of mine.
I long with all my heart
To be transformed;
To break the shackles of a shallow mind,
The harness of a cold and hollow heart,
To be consumed,
And burn with fire again.


(c) A McN
 
This was written many years ago but I only found it recently in a notebook.
The astronomer in me has always marvelled that every cell in my body owes it's founding chemistry to a long lost star explosion where hydrogen and helium were forged into heavier elements. To look at my young son shining in reflected moonlight brought back something of that wonder - we are all creatures derived from light.