Andromeda

“...and many times the Earth has rolled since then”
Begins the end of her story
For tomorrow, and a new shore
It’s over, over here
Now we dream off to there
Down under, down into dreamtime
Aboriginal knights light the Western wanderer’s way
Down there, down under
The temple dome flecked with white shards of stars
Silent watchers, those engines of Creation
Brightest white, burning yesterday’s hopes into the new dawn
And we’re off wandering new trails
Maybe tomorrow’s sunrise will be new
So much suffering we seem to choose
And the pain, the hurt, the distance
A billion billion grains of sand offer themselves to her beautiful feet
Soft and fine, like powder, like dust, like fleeting feelings
Like rivers, rivers of flowing auburn hair against the night
Half a world away and earlier, the poet contemplated
A ring, a smile, creases of joy, blossoming eyes
Silliness and sadness, meaning and madness
Wasn’t it just the weave of the times
Is it just me or is everyone high?
He remembered...
The richest man in Babylon was the man who understood
The one who had read the meaning of the riddle at Babel
Many turns before this night, the poet sighed
In the glory of the moment, in the innocence of locked eyes
A signal flashed fleeting past, feeling, probing; a few fingertips of meaning
The serene sensation of an honest tear’s evaporation called him
That tear, that moment, and now, the water shed for understanding
More than words, he knew; Aibohphobia is the fear of palindromes
A play on words: a pun
Humdrum, as the night prepared her bed for the returning Sun
Palindromes are the same backwards
Nun, mum; “Madam, I am Adam”
“Satan, oscillate my metallic sonatas”
Read it backwards, like aibohphobia
But it was more than words or wordplay
The depth of feeling, the warmth, the interplay
A dreamer’s dream, serene, complete, without fear
The ocean speaks
“Hold on, for another year
You are blessed with fellow travellers
And she needs you as she sails on”
And, like for so many others
He was bound; captured and held, wilfully unfree
He knew it, felt it, breathed
Cool salt air and probing wisps of breeze
Purple mountains, river valleys, Autumn’s phantasm of leaves
“We are She, he is we, I am her, and she is me
She’s the strangest life I’ve ever seen
We’re the strangest moments ever dreamed”
Bound together, for the moment, eternally
“I’d heard her tears tearing me
And I’d signed forever
A keepsake, a reminder
Memento mori
Aide memoire"
Always in mind
Hearts and time
“This one I’ll love”
He smiled at the memory; at the moonlight
He picked up a pebble and tossed it across the ocean
Standing on her moonscaped beach she listened to the roar
Her moon, up there, pulled gently at the shore
In a languorous set-to, with sand duelling foam
Essays and mountains, pages unfold
Glinting in and out of moonlight tossed across the lapping waves
A bottle called to her, left wreathed in white sand
The waves retreating, sand born from water, land from sea
He smiled, the soft magic of the act
He felt the wind’s tender caress across his bare chest
Tickled softly by the cotton shirt, pearly white on this desert night
On such a small space hanging amongst the stars
Those two, together but for the mirage of distance
Saturday night on planet Earth
Sad lives and tear-stained eyes
All around them
Death and birth
Triumphs and tragedies
Unity and disharmony
Elements of style
Heartache and dying
Apocalypse with steak and red wine
Cancers and bad rhymes
Agony through bad times
He looked and caught just that faint speck in the black
There She was
And she was looking too
From Andromeda
Paired
Bonds
Forever
Amor Vincit Omnia
Tales from Andromeda
“So!?” To the distance between us
“Love you”
He whispers
He sees his star dive to her
And she knows
“Yes, I am serious”
Sing to me
Think of me
Don’t forget me
Remember
It’s all a beautiful mistake
And we’re all perfectly strange
Heart of Andromeda?
Universal attraction