When we were new,
Beneath spring cherries snowing down all our blessing.
The wishes and love of the elders cloaked us in blossom.
Life's promises grew as sweet flowers,
Leaving choice scent on the breeze.
And the hummingbirds, whispering, stroking our souls with song,
Sipped the nectar of new creativity,
Yet faded, retreating, as the shades drew aside.
Morning, awakened, rose for attention
Rippled the curtains, coaxed them aside.
Drew my eyes outwards
Slowly, then eagerly,
Surprised and delighted by a new world. Alive,
growing, diverted by novelty
Called by the light that excited and pleased
But in dreamsong shadows
Near, but not heeded,
Cold logic and reason scared the hidden away.
The gla** blowers, artists, working in meadowlight,
Catch drifting song and breathe form round its life
Moulding dreamdrops with words, nourishing hummingbirds,
Bringing shape from the near to soften the now.
As I grow older, now dragged to the meadows
I hear their new song, discordant and harsh,
Blamesong for leaving them formless and flat.
Though fledging images cry for release
And the whispering turns to piercing shrieks
Small beaks remain empty, I leave them unfed.
And the hummingbirds that flitted like flakes of light
Despairingly grow to angry crows, gathering to peck and tear
For my disdain of their song
For nourishment denied
So I take my crows and breathe them to wrens, for the delight of my son.
And drift feathers in the air, snowing blamesong for my children.