The sun burns chill across a lake whose satin sears senses.
A smudged sky-line peeks through Summer's skeleton.
The hills, too distant, sit.
As they always have.

Pricklings, needlings, fall like Autumn's bronze and are still.
Tranquility aspires and soothes all she touches.

Thrice the white arm did brandish Excalibur.
And now... nothing, except...
a black fleck shimmering,
kissing the gossamer mirror of sky that drank a legend.

The vibrancy of creation pervades all.
The ear hears itself, for the first time, and takes note.
The eye perceives a newer depth.
A breeze caresses the hair.
What has been and what will be are focussed in the Sun
whose blinding shadow ripples with a zephyr of a
Spring yet to come.

Memories leaf to bud green,
heralds of new tomorrows.
Rainbowed birds call the earth into wakening and
Life rekindles its mighty heart to bear the fruits of love's labour.
A speck of dust, upon which Paradise might live,
where the hunter and hunted could rest
and free the peace of the universal kind.
As deep as the unknown
and broad as shall never be seen.
In Man's short spell of supremacy.

A long-necked swan,
black against the Sun from which it rises,
Swoops, dips and wheels against a backdrop of perfect sky.
White it falls,
to shimmering waters where it settles framed in cold flame.

Thrice did the youthful arm of Truth rise in wondrous glory
where this apparition now rests.
Thrice did Arthur's soul flash gold in a myriad of hues
that stilled the living breath.
Thrice did sight behold the silver droplets,
falling, from the glistening hand
that held in it's palm the Might of Albion.
And thrice did the heart burn
but for a glimpse of that fair nymph's beauty.

The Royal White Bird extends its wings in exultation,
Their powerful beats lifting it to the clouds,
from where it diminishes into the cold morning's sun.
Never to be seen again.

The stillness remains
The world is hushed
The Task is completed
So I now leave
Never to return.

Roath Park, 1985