Category: Nature

My water-polished, greenstone land, remains an uncut gem
that’s set within a ring of fire: the vast Pacific’s hem.
The legendary giants who caroused and shook this earth,
lie dormant under grassy cloaks now spread across their girth.

These titans sprawl, unconscious, all curvaceous; long limbs fanned
in glorious, abandoned grace: soft, rolling hills. My land.
A sleeper stirs, a hillside moves, some years, a cloak is torn,
or restless dreamers rouse and stretch volcanoes in a yawn.

Will languor always linger, or will ogres seal our fate?
My water-cradled, greenstone land is slumbering. I’ll wait.

—
New Zealand: land of earthquakes and volcanoes, jade (‘greenstone’) and rolling, grassy hills.

Breathing an intoxicating
ozone lung elixir,
swirling sea aromas
like an ocean cocktail mixer…

Sinking to the toenails,
feeling suction on bare feet,
that kisses naked insteps
in a sandy massage treat…

Squinting at the blue-on-blue
where water laps the sky
and drowns all shallow musing
in a repetitious sigh…

This is when the dreamer
opens eyes that were resigned
and pushes back the cobweb habits
wrapped around the mind.

Such cold, old-fashioned winter views,
each black and white stark scene
with shadows hinting in between
of warm, impassioned summer hues.

Your slender, budding form was so compelling,
your sensual, siren movements as you danced…
and then your ripening maturity
left coyness in the past as it enhanced
voluptuous allure. Each time we’re close
I breathe your luscious scent and I respond
with heavy-lidded eyes and knowing smile.
Sweet Lorelei, I cherish you beyond
your petal lips and stem-like throat…you draw
me in, oblivious to every thorn-
but willingly I’ll bleed to see you pose
in crystal on the mantel you’ll adorn.

I haunt the grassy ways,
calm channels through the garden isles’ blaze.
All riotous and perfume-laden, prone
with balanced stands of restful monotone.
The border path, a streaming, winding maze
in contrast with the blossoms massing lush –
while some discreetly blush.

I’m carried ever on.
This flower furnished, sumptuous salon
has mythic dryads always out of reach,
who beckon, arms translucent. They beseech
with visions all around me and beyond.
Intoxicating wonderland of peace,
your gift is my release.

An insect polka sings
of butterflies with tissue paper wings,
and lavender gives silent mauve applause,
while hybrids shout, ignoring nature’s laws.
A warm and glowing touch, the sunlight brings
me comfort. Here, enclosed in tender wrap,
relaxed in Eden’s lap.

The sight of her is like the pause
between a concert and applause,
the silence, loud and awed, each sense
absorbing beauty too intense.

She’s flush with promise as she peeps
through petal lashes. Then she steeps
herself in floral perfume while
she tries on her seductive smile.

But she’s capricious in her moods;
aggressive past-life attitudes
incite a storm and she rebels
against her youthful budding swells.

A part-ferocious, sweet young thing,
she’s that precocious vamp called Spring.

While butterflies and fairy seeds glide lazily on beams
of warmth and light contrasts the faded grass
with rosebush greens,
the growing shadows whisper of some darker days ahead;
of icy air and stormy skies when wind and rain are wed.

A premonition shivers over branches as they wait
and heavy blossoms fall apart. But rosehips undulate
untroubled by short gusts that only limply promise chill,
then skulk away in the belief that summer lingers still.