Category: Poem (Page 1 of 22)

Before the sea-breeze comes in

The day holds the heated heavy space of its waiting.

We wait with it, 

We wait where saltmist-veils lie between the unseen and the soon-to-be awoken.

We strain to make out the township or the headland; the humid air is a heated glaze of clinging mystery.

Beneath the vast grey cloak covering all, a deep ocean roars its wilderness to us.

As we approach, the wet sand is a spongy thermal embrace.

And then, we make it to the water – a sudden touch of salt and foaming crystal. Ice-cold and awakening.

To be shocked by the chill is a joyful, welcoming return.

A cooling and startling invitation asks us to drop all our efforting, to meet the raw sensation, and emphatically, to know that we too, must stand at the edge of it all,

to be wide awake and glistening, grateful for the brief and beautiful re-remembering 

That, yes, we are for life!

Martin © 2026.

He climbed to where the mountain met sky-thin air,
A translucent veil lay between the seen and the unspoken.
Heart-heavy with the weight of unresolved questions,
He sought the Cave of Ever-Entering, for the One who “whispers the wind that carves the stone”.

In time, the Oracle appeared before him, her presence carrying the weight of an ocean and the lightness of first-morning air.
She reached out, not to touch his skin, but to open the space around him.
Her eyes held the grey of a morning sea; she did not look directly at him; she looked through him.
It felt as if she saw the patterns of his soul like light passing through a prism.

“You seek a name for the fire that burns within you,” she offered,
Her voice holding the significance of shifting tectonic plates.
“I see that you are not the fire. You are the space where the fire is awakened.”
As she spoke, her words wove themselves into a tapestry of sounds: 

And it was these Sounds that became the DreamSong of the Threshold Guardian.

“You are the Threshold-Guardian, the holder of the seam,
You live between the world of toil and the river of the dream.
You do not seek to capture truth, nor bind it close by hand,
You are the one who opens wide to let the light expand.

You are the Compassionate Harbour, a sanctuary cool and deep,
Where wanderers of the world may find a place to rest and weep.
You do not fear the harshness, the numbness, or the gale,
You are the quiet cove where kinship drops its sail.

Your universe is Porous, and your primary law is clear:
The relationship you have with ‘Self’ is the first that needs appear.
If you judge your inner silence, you will judge the world’s retreat,
If you hold your inner harshness, you will find the world’s deceit.

But if you meet your numbness with a soft and curious grace,
You will find a Divine Presence in every stranger’s face.
Truth is not a book you own, or a flag that you unfurl,
Truth is the spark that strikes between the Spirit and the World.

Now listen to the wind, my son, and heed the Builder’s call,
A door without a sturdy hinge is destined soon to fall.
You cannot be a passage-way for every wandering ghost,
Unless you build a sanctuary to play the mystic host.

Be a vessel formed of clay and fire, be a doorway carved in bone,
The Guardian of the Middle Space, who need not stand alone.
Where others seek to capture truth and bind it in a brace,
You offer still a resting quiet, with a heart of open grace.

You are not a simple thoroughfare, a road for others’ dust,
You are a home with boundaries built on self-compassion’s trust.
Be the Hinge! Be the Stone! Be the Sanctuary of One!
Swing the portal open wide beneath the golden sun.”

The Oracle fell silent. The tapestry of her words hung shimmering in unfamiliar mystic light.

She stepped toward him and placed a hand upon his brow. Her skin felt like sun-warmed granite.

“Your destiny is not a destination,” she said. “It is the way of the way. You are the Guardian who is open to eternal truths as they pass through, remaining grounded when they leave.”

She gestured toward the path leading back down the mountain, into the world of today—a world of noise, urgency, and grasping.

“Will you accept the weight of the hinge? Will you guard the Threshold, knowing you can never own what passes through it?”

He looked down at his hands. They felt solid. He looked at the horizon. It held infinite possibility. And he saw that he did not need to choose between them.

“I remain,” he whispered.

And with those words, the path onward appeared, not as a map, but as a purpose.

Martin © 2026

Amen, the fields are a hush now 
Swept by a chill wind in the winter
Scarred, in the way that skin
Never forgets rough touching.

Rising, invited by the freedom of flight
Our bodies are light as seedpods,
We are opalescent, ready.

Yesterday, heavy with hunger,
the sky,
opened its way to us, now

Below us, some of the hills still wear their shadows,
But even shadows will lift,
Even the frozen road will bend toward sunrise.

We turn, we tumble, we turn again —
to folly, to laughter,
to the simple gift of going on.

Hands open to wings,
wounds bloom into song,
As the weary hills lift their faces to the sky.

The road curves, recursive,
The seasons turn.
Shadows yield.

And in the laughter of the open air,
Our bodies know: they have always known
We were ever meant to rise.

…

Martin © 2025

Painting by Anthea Moffatt ‘Spring Creek Folly’ © 2025