The Sky Gift

It had been an ordinary day, which is to say that life - extraordinary though it is - had travelled through me without receiving my proper attention. I was tired - distracted - recently returned from a place far away and failing to live with all the intensity that consciousness deserves.

I had cabin fever - my restless heart needing something more - so I jumped on my bike with barely an hour of daylight remaining and rain clouds closing in, to cycle out around the island where we live and at least - as I thought - burn off some energy.

But of course the world then taught me a lesson, with a sunset rainbow which stopped me dead, leaping from my bike and standing by the road in amazement until the light all too soon faded, and I pedalled home in the rain and the dusk at last, soaked through with water and delight, bearing this gift for the woman I love, and for you too….

The Sky Gift

I could write you this rainbow -

taking the words raw - uncooked,

plucked from the cupboard of the sky

the way I found them - then presented

for you to devour, sight unseen.


Or I can give you this yellow

light - cloud infused, sky clotted

with water vapour, sun sugared,

egg whisked and wind whipped -

meringued with meaning.


This sky - delicious as

dessert, pierced with

colour and spark spectrum,

arc delivered to earth, circuit

completed. Current connected.


You, who could not be there -

lover, other, luminous light

of my life accepting this - sky

rifted, rainbow gifted, eye

captured…. Poet delivered.

.