Poems by Grant Thompson

II; The Show

The day’s winds have yielded the stage to the sun.

They have filled sails, held kites aloft,

Driven waves, carved stone, and hurled sand to

Scour smooth the bones of the earth.

The wind holds its breath.

The trees cease their waving and fall still and silent.

The water’s surface mirrors stone, trees and sky.

Expectant peace reigns.

They start to arrive, walking carefully over the rocks.

To witness sun’s final challenge to the encroaching darkness;

Golden pillar of light which will splash itself across the western sky,

Flames spread thinly then disperse and surrender to the dark,

This is dusk. Like the dawn

Neither day nor night has dominion here.

It is a pause, an intermission, to prepare for the next show.

Indifferent. Each one unique through the ages.

Still more arrive, finding their way by flashlight, feel, or familiarity.

They are quiet; respectful of the peace of others.

They carefully navigate around those already there

And lie down on the sun warmed rocks seeking twilight’s first jewel.

Purpling sky darkens slowly to pitch.  

As the sun and wind played their parts,

So now must the night serve its purpose;

A canvas, a backdrop for the final scene.

From an adjacent rock, a voice, words, overloud in the silence,

Shatters the stillness, “I’ve never seen it as dark as this outside our house……”

The voice trails off then hardly to be heard, yet filled with awe

“My God! Look at all the stars!”

Darkness is now complete.

No moon shines on the upturned faces

No moon overpowers His canvas.

There is a rustling, then, of voices, the whispers of indrawn breaths

As nothing less than the universe, all of creation, emerges from the darkness.

III; Night

Nothing exists at night

That is not there also in the day.

Why is there no comfort in that

When the shadows reach up

From the forest floor?

Let the night engulf you.

Like a creature of the dark woods,

Senses prickling with awareness

Listen what do you see?

Look what do you hear?

Night steals the colour from the world

Leaving only shades of black, gray and light.

Black reaches up from below

Blessed light from above

Gray bridges span extremes

Shadows twist, grow and fall.

Motion reveals forests’ foragers.

Gray flickers through canopy

Wise visage on silent wing glimpsed

through monochrome tangle.

And overhead the show continues.

Heroes, and hunters, dragons and royalty

On parade with Man’s other myths, circle endlessly

Until mornings mists obscure woods view,

When Sun and wind called anew.

IV: Morning

Morning is born in mist.

Damp cloak seeps into woods,

Clouding vision,

Obscuring truth

At the limit of sight, bear, boulder?

Sun slowly rises, gains strength,

Burns away mist off water.

Touches only treetops

Their feet enshrouded

Still in twilight.

         

Ripples on the bay

Dance with zephyrs kin.

Treetop leaves sound reveille

For the waking, taps

For night’s children.

Daylight’s own, recalled from

Dreams are slow to return,

Hear leaves call. Footsteps not their own,

Soft pads on crackling undergrowth

Following lair’s path to rest.

Wavelets on the bay.

Treetops gently bend

In the freshening air.

Sun’s beams slant through trees

To warm forest floor.

Brilliant sun and joyous winds,

Full awake,

Cast off damp cloak.

Banish mist’s clinging tendrils

From dappled woods.

Sparkling waves on the bay.

The new day challenges.

Bay’s mirror shattered

Til wind yields again

To the evening sun

Blue Water

By Grant Thompson

Rising from blue water,

Are the ageless bones of the earth,

The foundations of the world.

They don’t know years, or decades or centuries.

The passage of millennia, eons and epochs are recorded

 In the folds and layers of this ancient monolith.

In its existence

There is slight regard for the brief flickering of our passage

And yet our paths cross.

We are drawn to places where sky and water, wind and stone converge.

Some find a quiet place, shelter from the wind in a fold of rock

Some find an open place, stage set for the celestial panorama heralded by the sunset

Some find a high place, to hurl themselves out over deep sparkling water

          And for the briefest of moments, fly.

Rising from blue water,

Are my children, wife, families, friends,

The foundations of my world.

They don’t know eons, millennia and epochs.

What does time mean in this place?

In this place they know only now.

In their existence

There is slight regard for the eons it took to form these bones

Our feet wear paths into the earth’s foundation.

To places where sky and water, wind and stone converge.

Now in a quiet place, we read, play cards, sheltered from the wind in a fold of rock

Now in an open place, we lay, stage set for the celestial panorama heralded by the sunset

Now in a high place, we hurl ourselves out over deep sparkling water

          And for the briefest of moments, fly.