From skins and strings the pulse of things
streams from the heart into the limbs
a river in the wilderness
of music flowing through warm flesh
tumbling and pouring, splashing down
like sweet rain beating on parched ground
fertility on chaos thrives
and gods and demons of destruction
gazing down out of the future
shine foreknowledge through the dramas
made of fears and dreams and wishes
played out by wayfaring humans
shuttling endlessly in circles
back and forth from birth to wisdom
death to folly & returning
while swift elemental spirits
quivering alive in every tree
dance orgiastically
* * * * *
drummed into being out of nothing
in the firelight of a clearing
on the ever shifting border
between bush and agriculture
predatory dreams and ghost gods
rise to take possession of us
we become what they imagine
wild horses to be ridden
deer for hunting cows for milking
fated to go round in circles
grinding out the salt of sorrow
hungrily towards tomorrow
at the mercy of emotions
that don’t change
are not transcended
filled with memory and knowledge
draining empty wafting onwards
in the breezes blowing through us
always dying to be born
in caverns and on windy ridges
all along the twilight sea coast
like the wild grain of the hillsides
sprung from tiny seeds and thoughtlings
in our green and midnight darkness
we bear deep within us traces
of untold immortal longings
and the world is also ours
. . . and we the world’s
tied like a knot
twinned inextricably entwined
unto the kindling of delight
masked headless burning bright
deep in the jungles of the night
where tiger’s roam and languid snakes
coil silent through the undergrowth
forever dying to be born
* * * * *
and everything is as it is
and nothing is the way it seems
and all is well.
