JOHNMICHAEL SIMON POETRY

Every tree likes a story

so do cornflowers and rocks,

see how they bend their heads,

shift shadows this way and that

to catch each word of the wind

read each cloud puffing along,

it’s as if the whole forest is listening

 

Especially if it has been a dry season

and the story is one about rain.

 

Once upon a time some sea children

were playing bubble games frothing

from one wave to the next.  One day

the sun wizard lured them by throwing

a golden noose and they scrambled up

it to skip and tumble in his cotton candy

clouds.  Soon they drifted away across the

sky like ships, their sails burgeoning in

gusty air.  After a while they came to a

tall mountain range and beyond it spied

a valley, but to fly over the mountains

they needed permission from sky giants

who lived there.

 

The sky giants held a meeting to decide

whether to let the water children pass.  Some

agreed but others argued no.  Then, so the

story goes, the sky giants became cross with

one another, their faces darkened in anger,

they roared out in ominous language

 

Then what happened, asked the cornflower?

Look up, whispered the poplar, remembering

now, as over the mountain peaks a fleet of

ships came sailing, pushed by giant hands and

on their decks, crowds of water children looking

down and waving until one fat drop and then

another and another bungee-splashed down,

dancing from leaf to leaf, kissing each cornflower’s

cheeks then rushing over the ground, over stones

 

To join the river gurgling its way round bends

down, down to the sea where all stories

begin and end.