There was much music – singing, women’s laughter,
and the lute, strummed, gently filled the air,
- but the restless soul, ambitious, sought targets,
enemies, to attack: children, unprotected,
in their beds, dreamt of crowns of golden flowers,
whilst a devil crept with crooked back.
With a few chords, I sing a simple song,
soft notes, and with the hum of insects,
drift through the day until evening comes
with ghostly black: I ran away
from the empty fields and private woods:
exotic birds feed their young under the eaves;
the wind is a dead movement rather than a restless spirit,
hair tousling, talking in the trees and hedgerows;
the sun is fierce, the rivers dry litter-strewn channels
running sadly through the land.
We go walking in the dust, four thousand years
after the stories were first told by fireside;
the trust in the eyes of the children
is as deep as the sea as they learn with love
to perfect the slowly breaking heart.
