I Did It Because

This is the role I play
And I cannot remake it
Those are the words I say
And I do not, cannot, fake it

Even with the cake
Left out in the rain
I have to move on
I must forsake it

The presence is no longer
There to give me pain
There is a light, a light
And I know that I can make it

No more the sad romance
Waiting to dictate it
No more nostalgic thoughts
No more to placate it

But don’t you forget
Those days running on the sand
Don’t you go forget
Rejoice, remember, o yes, how grand

To skip, and to laugh
And to make love upon this land
To skip, to laugh, and to dance
To make love upon this land

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You Did It Because

I too stole pears
As you say Augustine did
I too was a thief after dark
In the western tradition

That I say this gives me pleasure
For the memories are the truth
They are the power and the glory
To make me as I am, from my youth

With means to fill the whole page
With other ignominious deeds
Also, to mention the monastics
Here, by the river, here, beside the reeds

I too stole life
Has many more had before me
I too was a thief in the park
In the northern tradition

That I say this gives me witness
For the memories are the truth
They are the hope in my truth
To make me, make me as I already am

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First One Here, Only One Here

There is a stillness
A peace, a quiet, a calm
A future to invest in

An opportunity
Not to take the world by storm
But, but to peacefully be there

Where there is light
Where there is shadow
Where last night is now gone

Where there are bare branches
Where there is rooftop moss
Where none of that displeases

There was a morning letter
Or rather morning words written
Written, what could be better

Than to celebrate the page
Age not being such a bad thing
With a wholeness to the ring

Sing then; there is a stillness
A peace, a quiet, a calm
So bring on the future to invest in

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Blue, Big Blue

The seventh wave roars in
As the first wave hobbles out
The huge crash
Breaks onto the impenetrable rock
The rising, and falling spray does it
And does it again the whole of the day
Water charging into stone
Stone standing solid, resolute

Beneath the surface, out in the deep
Shoals and predators
Dolphins, whales and sharks
All the known colours of the world
With the music of communication
All the stillness of the depths of solitude
With the deft touch of survival
Among the beautified breadths of love

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Drift, As In Wave

Only fragments now
No more to write of the papyrus
Or of those poets in the valley below

Only apathetic now
No more to be plagued by passions
Nor to wait for early morning letters

Only lost for words now
Yet not lost for those past words
Which passed by without reflection

Only time for oneself now
Yet not with time at the crucial moment
When attachment needs to be released

Only insecurity of security now
Uncertainty being the partner of trust
When doubters take over the asylum

Then to fall back on exaggeration
Amplification of what is and isn’t true
As a means of saying nothing at all

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