August 2016
Neil Creighton
dinecreighton@gmail.com
Long ago, alone and palely loitering, I rode my Norton to where I had heard there was a party. Fateful. There I met a lady, full beautiful, a faery’s child and we married soon after. She still has me in thrall, but being rich in mercy, has taught me about love and virtue, given me children and poetry and banished clean away bad dreams and pale loitering. On my blog, Wind of Flowers. Poems by Neil Creighton, there are lots more poems for Diana.

Note: “Earth Music” has been published in The Second Genesis. An Anthology of Contemporary World Poetry. It is a love poem but my aim was more broad than the love between one man and one woman. “Dance with Me” is about the jubilation and transcendence of love. The third poem, “This Passing Day”, is about love that has endured.
​

​Earth Music 


An intricate, richly sensual tune
this tactile, perfumed earth sings
and to the song of sun, sea and moon
all creation its own harmony brings.
The lover sun holds earth in his arms,
the insatiable sea caresses the shore,
the night is besotted by the moon’s charms
and everywhere is the cry for more.
Flowers willingly open for honey bees,
clouds are the vaporous water’s embrace,
and with earth and sea the insistent breeze
communes as if face to face.

Thus every creature is entranced
by the music that around them flows
and caught up in this harmony dance
patterns each intuitively knows.
All these are creatures of the dust
caught in earth’s scent and song,
singing and dancing in the way they must
patterns of desire to which they belong. 
Whether in stealth, danger or death,
in grace, beauty or fluttering need,
in savagery or urgent stress, 
all play in earth’s rich symphony of seed.

So you and I, who smell the perfumed air, 
are caught and enfolded by this song
and to its great pattern and desire
our lives in close union belong.
The sounds ringing with rich complexity
melody upon melody entwine,
and tenderness, love and fidelity
in its high, clear, pure notes shine.
O my love, I in this great world stand
surrounded by rich music of life, 
sustained in spirit, heart, mind and hand
by you – my partner, my joy, my wife.



​

dance with me


come, dance with me
and let your palm lightly meet with mine
dance with me to this music 
which plays in urgent time
dance with me in pastel dawn
and through the morning dew
look, the world is dancing
and surely we must too.

come, dance with me 
and let our brimming hearts rejoice
as we surrender to the beauty
of music, colour and voice
oh listen carefully now
to how the music grows
and new melody upon melody
inevitably swells and flows

come dance with me
when change of key the hint of sorrow brings
when timpani resounds and tuba laments 
to discordant plucking from strings
for fields of lament must surely come
but keep your hand in mine
and we will dance past sorrow and grief
in our own three four time.

So dance with me 
through fields where flowers bloom in spring
dance with me
beyond the canyons that bitterness and envy bring
dance with me
past arid land of war and lust and hate
dance with me
past the blind and thoughtless ravages of fate
dance with me
to keep away the darkness of the night
dance with me
to bathe me in your beauty and your light
dance with me
as close and tightly fitted as a glove
O dance with me. Hold me.
Surround me with your love. 


​This Passing Day. 


It seems to me that the brittle-bright morning
when we first loved
was a glistening shimmer of dew drop.
All the world's wealth was ours.
Time itself seemed held in fragile crystal stop.

Now it is late afternoon.
The sky is still clear and the sinking sun
more intensely beautiful than it was long ago.
Who can know if night will suddenly fall
or day stretch on past midnight
in muted, dimming, surreal twilight.

No matter. Each transient moment is rich with joy
and passing time has been our strange friend,
gifting us a plaited golden cord that twists and entwines,
tying us richly to each other
and to the present, past and unknowable future.

So come, take my hand.
That fragile morning is long gone.
Evening must fall but the stars promise light.
We have lived and loved together,
shared in glory throughout the long passing day.
Is this not enough? It must be enough.
It is much more than enough.



​“Earth Music” was first published in The Second Genesis. An Anthology of Contemporary World Poetry (AWARLII, 2014). 
©2016 Neil Creighton
Editor's Note:  If this poem(s) moves you please consider writing to the author (email address above) to tell him or her. You might say what it is about the poem that moves you. Writing to the author is the beginning of community at Verse Virtual. It is very important. -FF