Willow Walk

for emancipation day

no count of years may still the hand of fate

but yet the kindly sunrise eases pain

as those who fought arise to fight again

with little rancour and without debate

for once removed the horrors cease to grate

on any soul and there’s no longer strain

when each of us can see the future plain

and know that we’re the owners of the state

this is the promise made by those who sleep

beneath our soil whose lives gave ours full worth

that a bright morning would our people see

not as a flock of tired and hungry sheep

but as a folk in fullest time of mirth

enjoying every taste of liberty

merely the facts

those who have measured the true depths of hate

are never guided by the maps we know

nor by the compass or the starry show

at height of darkness that is not their fate

on the long journey for they won’t debate

the terrors or the pains there is no blow

so hard it will detain them the great flow

of history inspires them not to wait

there’s a reminder that we learn the ways

when we are children and the early signs

of wisdom we dismiss as so much guff

yet we return when we’ve fulfilled the days

of hardest learning and worked in the mines

discovering at last we’re not so tough

cancelled bill

some mention made then must the silence fall

upon the envies that have held us late

within the barrier lacking all freight

of decency or commerce but the tall

protectors of our honour lightly call

on such devotion as the wise relate

in their long histories and we do not state

a better truth the pain belongs to all

so what is earned after the sacrifice

no one regards as worthy of our toil

since it has fallen from no awesome height

but rather we are told that the full price

is not a matter for complaint or broil

but can be settled in a day and night

right into the gale

go through the shallows then out past the wreck

until you reach the point where water burns

you’ll know it clearly by the sharp returns

then note the ship the one with golden deck

and figurehead of angel with wry neck

you’d sign up on her as one does who yearns

for urgent journeys yet as each child learns

there are no funds left to support the cheque

still without vision no one would begin

a single enterprise and we’d remain

stuck in the mud unable to set sail

instead we face each whimsy with a grin

allow the facts of chance to come out plain

and turn our faces right into the gale

with mouth agape

we lack the honest mastery of time

though calendars and tables give the shape

of power to our lives and let us ape

the feeling of authority sublime

against the forces pushing from the slime

that are true horror still there's no escape

all in the end will stand with mouth agape

and weep and then fall back from the long climb

children look up and ask for a great dad

to hold their hands and pat them on the cheeks

while looking down from his house in the sky

the adult now can't help but feel quite sad

recalling that poor child with its soiled breeks

when first it learnt the whole tale was a lie

kind words of care

when falls the echo on forgotten ground

none of our heroes can come up for air

since there is not one inch's room to spare

for exploration and we must confound

the masters of each noble hill and mound

who watch as we succumb to deep despair

and laugh while those who voice kind words of care

fall silent as our last good hopes are drowned

the long goodnight that none would dare to say

to any who has travelled through that cloud

past all the boundaries of human grime

is spoken now so we might reach a day

when all that's visible all that's allowed

within the reach of normal common time

is but the text of one less moral play

each normal plight

whatever happens there is no regret

for tempests that  have shredded new-leaved trees

awakening the youthful from their ease

into a present that is all upset

where each is cast at once deep into debt

not knowing whom to help nor whom to please

frozen in place by the harsh sky's decrees

and driven only to hard fear and fret

still there are signs that we have not been told

all that we need in order to get by

the simple passage of each normal plight

instead we're warned to be urgent and bold

focus inhuman danger in the eye

but not be lured by any trick of light

the simple magics

when we are lost in rapture at the sight

of the spring flowers at last fully blown

we are then healed down to the very bone

of the last vestiges of winter's blight

so too when we have passed beyond the night

into another domain of the known

where once again we cease to be alone

we can be certain that the world is right

the simple magics are the ones most true

not to feel terror at the change of time

yet to be awed that life returns again

in all those places that the sun makes new

so we rejoice in the slow upward climb

and let our bodies cast away their pain

entry of the dart

where all the edges reach into the heart

are no clear corners nor a single sign

that time is changing the dividing line

is never crossed yet all are kept apart

by the hard means of some still arcane art

which the most foolish will insist divine

or claim as kindly warm tender benign

although they bleed from entry of the dart

we're far into the strange realm of the blind

where all the rules evil and perverse

and every bullet seems to find its mark

dead centre but the lying human mind

insists reality can't be adverse

that all is light down here deep in the dark

matters we may know

in all our doings there’s a rule we make

about the bounds beyond which we won’t go

those limits of the matters we may know

or of the facts in which we may partake

like the good flints that sharpen when they flake

or that swift stream with hidden deeper flow

beneath the mountain with the secret glow

all of the places that we can’t forsake

within each heart are truths that none may speak

yet in our song they’re vibrant in their call

to warm the spirit and release the mind

allowing us the harmony to seek

beyond the power of the strong and tall

right into where the force of love must bind