Where the falcons roost

We have escaped and will not return

On the underside of the sun’s eye,

Four million years from the sea

We keep one eye on the moon,

Two hands on our pulse

Let the light lead as best we can

While we have it

The world sleeps to the sound of the barn owl screech

We alone rattling in our cages

The cool crags shoulder our stealthy weight

Steady (mostly) under our curses and threats

But better to be shouting out here

Than sleepless and sullen on the inside

Better to be breathing in the lidless dark

Than embalmed by our sweaty sheets

 

Breaking the day into smaller chunks

The marvellous coalesced quartz clasts

The measured tapping of our nut tools

The pause

The sigh and the heave

The scrabbling of skin on stone

The gasp and the grasp

A welcome relief from snoring,

Litters of laconic laughter

Or the tapping onslaught of tentpeg hammers

 

We escape our skin,

Our skulls

Our skeletal jokes

Our dulled delight for our plasticised life

We find our sinews and connect them again

With fingers cramping

 

Still, there is hurry even in this world:

The push-pull of dominion

Callous down-treading

The refusal to look sideways to lizards for advice

Blindness to the ants

Cursing of sun and rain,

The very mothers of our stone playground

 

We pause to find the path.

As always, lingering can become hesitation,

A swoop-down desperation

But calculations can rescue

And love, which requires time,

Conquers all

We lack nothing here.

This kingdom belongs to us,

And all who wish to share

All that entry requires is

The shedding of cynical scales,

Rebirth by renewal

The desire for new sight

Life is for children, for the innocent,

For those of us who have been rescued for recreation

Adventure is not a luxury

It is the only way out

May it find you ready,

May you find the one that calls you

May your heart and limbs arch and arise.