Nightsounds

Mongoose calls
before settling in
for the night and
a raucous choir
of frogs serenades the
moon -
glowing
on white-patched
leopard eyes
lying waiting
watching
the sus-sus-sus
of the night adder
wending his way home
through the grass.
Elephantine
grumbles
echo watchfully
through the night
while rhinocerean
lovers meet
clandestinely
for nocturnal trysts
where the jackal
barks - seal-like
to strident
cricket symphonies
marking
the hours until
dawn.

© Copyright Eleanor Clark
28 April 2013

Lingua Franca

Sometimes I swim
with words
like cool, shaded
secret mountain lakes.

Sometimes they
are young untested
rivulets struggling
to become rivers
to pour turbulently
down.

Sometime they meander
and pause,
eddying around
small pockets
of sunshine
and dragonflies.

Sometimes with shock
they enter the ocean
and learn to speak
another watery
language
while feeling
drowned.

And sometimes
they hide
underground
in darkness
and refuse to see
the light.

© Copyright Eleanor Clark
25 April 2013

dear life

dear life,

i had such plans
dreamed up
in sunlit moments
wandering
in childhood's
hopeful fields.

i had such dreams
aspirations
plans for cosy
mornings
with little feet
warmed by mine.

i had such hopes
for baking cookies
for grubby fingers
and grown-up
lover-friend as
he went to work.

i had such ideas
of what colour
to paint the living
room and collected
books to go on shelves
that i may never have.

and dust
it collects on those
plans
dreams
hopes
ideas
until they are stale
and faded
with time
and stained
by tears.

oh dear life,

i have had to find
other plans and dreams
and hopes and ideas
to fill the empty rooms
of my dream house.

those plans though
are fully-fleshed
and dear to me
and fill my couches
with fluffy-cushioned
sense of home.

i fear though,
i fear
that one day when
old dreams
become reality
that they might be
hard to fit,
uncomfortable
to the touch,
and hard to bear.

© Copyright Eleanor Clark
3 April, 2013