Above and below

Is there a sun that I really know?

Going down on the edge of what we see

Dipping slowly beyond you and me

Heaven is slipping beneath a darkening sea

All our feathered friends now take rest 

In a finely woven cosy nest

Burrows are dug deep to prepare for the coming night

The rays of the sun dwindle in a dying light

Raw sienna, burnt umber and yellow ochre 

Lay their brushes on the palette of the day

And resign to the fact that they have had their say

Dinner plates washed and put away

Kicking off shoes to curl up for the night

Plumped up pillows tucked up tight

A curtain slowly draws across the mind

Revealing another lightshow just behind

Above and below

Is there a moon that I really know?

Coming up into the sky silhouetted by a tree

Rising slowly for you and for me

Hell is preparing to put on a show

And all the creatures of the night, they know

The owls, the cats, the midnight flying bats

 

Will cheer now that the sun is gone

And do not fear where they belong

The naughty and the bold 

midnight sprites won’t be told

What they can and cannot do.

The wary fox takes delight

and raids the chicken coop

With slow cunning stealth and then a fatal swoop

Fireflies in the forest dance

Around witches and their brew 

Both courting someone special

For a midnight rendezvous

Arched across the sky the goddess Nut

Her speckled starry body on a canvas

Of indigo, azure and cobalt blue

She collects the dark and the light to pursue

Without her there will be no break of day

No chase of light and dark in a ritual display

She knows that order out of chaos

Is a silly game to play

On the tips of her fingers and on her tippy toes

In a merry dance across the sky

On and on and on she goes

 

Now it is coming round to that time

The cock will crow and alarm clocks ring

The end of fitful dreams that kept you in your skin

A flutter of an eye or an aching limb

Will you wake up from a short death

That sleep keeps you in?

What tedious chores and yawning bores

Will you have to face, to face the day

The night you are passing through

Is a kind of immortality if you say

I am a star of the goddess Nut

With her magick there is nothing I cannot do

Now the sun knows it will break its egg shell

From the night that hatched it so well

All the demonic forces will appear to disappear

And tip toe back on this stage to the rear 

No prayers will be said

Now we know our God is gone

He disappeared with his devil 

At the sound of this song

But our dark knight will bide his time

With a clever rhyme

The moon ticks the clock

 

The sun counts the time

As we wait here on earth for a new sign

The vault of heaven is gone

Now we face a new kind of test

Not remembering how we got here

Or knowing our true quest

The map of the mind is torn

And this costume that we have worn

Cannot hide the revelry of a bad pantomime

For this theatrical crime

The hollow ring of a bell without a chime

This charade of duality consistent in its flaw

Gives us the lie and keeps us in awe

But Mother Nut has her own children to foster and to care

She will damn everyone else

With a pluck of a strand of her hair

A scribe is mustering a new kind of play

To walk out in a different kind of way

Set this down and count it out

Not to saw the wind of the air

With false emotions without a care

But to pull them in on a sail on the wind

 

To leave no doubt this language is a mantle

Now pick it up to take the gamble

Five beats of a rhyme

The breath breathes out and in

An iambic pentameter can even break the skin

When it knows how to pause

The ineffable silence breaks the clause

Shriek or shrill the knife just went in 

Slowly through the heart for a kill

The villain falls

A cheer for the hero

The thunderous applause

Will be laughed at by some who saw and

Who got it all along 

They leave the theater knowing the illusion is gone

At the temple of dawn

Light and Dark come to revere

Both are astonished to find a shadow here

Mother Nut says

It is never too late 

To understand that duality is not your fate

I’m your only true friend

With me there is beginning there is no end

 

I am your shadow

Do you know now, on how much of me you depend?

Time is fast asleep

At the bottom of a river deep

Dreaming of a silver fish

Who thinks she is a bird

Simply delighted that her song will be heard.

As time wakes from its slumber deep

The river stirs up its secrets to keep

The silver fish spreads wings of gold

A tale of a dream and courage unfold

Mountains listen valleys reply

Under a vast and open sky

A gentle wing flies on a song to sing

Feathers ruffled from a nest that bring

A call to Mother Nut as she hunts to fill a beak

Now is the time to stretch your wings and seek