Music is a stream

Music is a stream

whose fingers, knuckling over boulders,

send droplets trickling into crevices, tinkling;

gurgles bass notes in hollows beneath the rocks,

spills soprano trills

that burst into the white noise of spray.

Music is the wind

that whistles high notes in the leaves

low in a bowl of mountain-side;

that whistles sad through a stone wall;

laughs in a stand of nettles.

Music is all that stirs on the earth;

blackbird standing on the dawn,

trout etching circles at noon,

the raucous crows bickering with evening,

a fox tearing a hole in the night-time.

Often the well is dry

Tired

Tired,
tired words
burst like plastic footballs.

Waiting on this sand-paper plain,
I am no more than a skull
propped up.

With biro for harpoon,
I remain still
in the little pool of my shadow,

turning questions over
on the spit of my mind;
I have burnt larks on my plate.

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And when there is drought and nothing is growing, the first rain comes like a shower of diamonds.