PHILIP DODD

PHILIP DODD

DIAMONDS NOT DUST

A new year wakes,
its loom built for weaving.
Geese by the lakes,
like them time has wings for leaving.
Diamonds not dust,
clear copper not rust,
may you find,
life be kind.
On the bare stage,
sing to empty galleries,
yet in your mind know,
if only one hears your song,
and loves your melody,
however rough,
it is enough.

Word craft is old.
Verse the first tales told.
With your silver pan,
search the river for gold.
Empty handed in the market,
you may seek not what is sold,
but listen, out there in the air,
diamonds not dust,
clear copper not rust,
your eyes may see,
your hands may hold.

THE FLIGHTLESS FOG DRINKER

Onymacris unguicularis

has a name in Latin

it does not need to learn,

lives in the Namib Desert

where heat is so hot

it seems itself may burn.

Tis but a flightless beetle

without thin, transparent wings.

Under the dunes, in its sandy den,

butts its head and backward flings.

Bat blind in its lightless cell,

flexes feelers, parched and dry,

until it scurries up a tunnel,

to sit under night time sky.

On top of a dune it waits

to feel less hot, near to roast,

and faces the breeze and drifts of fog

from the far Skeleton Coast.

Allows fog to wet its scales,

slowly slurps it down like dew,

and then scuttles to its den in haste,

swelled with its fresh foggy brew.

O, to be a flightless fog drinker,

though without spirit or brain,

to be such an instinctive insect,

may not be a thinker,

but knows no sorrow or pain.

WHITE CRANE

White crane migrate

from one land of lakes to another,

long lane takes you over any border,

hold in your heart

the yellow glow and warmth of summer,

come back again,

rest in reedy, shallow water.

You nest in Armenia,

India, Japan to China.

You glimmer in your picture.

Wake, lift from your lake,

fly the sky of summer.

In dream your path I take.

The air your kingdom,

you are unaware of your freedom,

but I am, white crane,

while humans make other humans

refugees from their homeland,

what was built long ago leave behind broken,

my spirit you have woken, white crane.

PHILIP DODD