Father Sky

The Moon was full, when Mother rose,
and gladdenned maids with mystic glows
of stainless pearls from starry whirls.
The scatterred clouds are skyward floes.

In diamond dust and dimly pale,
in greys of night and grimly frail,
he rounds the edges, the rifts, and wedges,
the harshness mutes its haloed veil.

The Mother's mood is merry measure
and fruited round and fragrant pleasure.
Her swelling breast, of sweetness blessed,
are flows and trickles flowers treasure.

Though ices strive to overwhelm,
the fertile earth, her faithful realm,
in splendour rises, in spectral guises,
with eager crow and crowning elm.

From dark she dances, Daughter Dawn,
from greyest light till green the lawn.
In early hue of acid blue
and scarlet flush the sky is drawn.

The morning star, when mists are clear,
reflects upon the flawless mere
and paints the view in pale hue
of ghostly rose, now golden cheer.

The eldest Brother, eagle friend,
has soared above the cities penned,
and steps on arcs of stellar parks
where whips the wind and weathers wend.

The breakers's breadth the Brother braves;
the second Brother seized the waves,
and foam adhered to face and beard.
The sea assails sandy caves.

And third the Brother, thrawn in ire,
his hair ablazed like hungry fire.
his searing craft with sword and shaft
protects the clan from torch and pyre.

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Their Sister Sun with searching sight,
who burns the shadows, bane of night,
is swift to greet with swooning heat
her grimmest brothers, great in might.

The Sister searches sunderred lands;
the Brothers question branching bands.
What darkness caught in dreaded knot
their wayward kin and where he stands?

The dawn was fair; the day was bright;
the gardens glad in golden light;
the weather stilled and worries filled;
and red the eve in wrath and plight.

The silver moon assails storms:
the hunting winds and hail swarms.
The stars are split and starkly lit:
the neon light that never warms.

The nursing Mother, naive Daughter,
await the winds the waves have brought her.
Thc Moon sustains his midnight rains
upon the beach where pounds the water.

In middlenight the Mother schemes;
the Daughter waits in wanderred dreams.
His silver tears on sills and mirrors
conceal dark whence silence streams.

The Brothers break their brooding storms:
their acid hate and angry forms.
The stars are split and starkly lit:
the neon light that never warms.

Where meets the sea to mounded earth,
where waves despair in winds of mirth,
the inn implores, with open doors,
begetting storms, where gales birth.

Explain the stars that play at night:
what science tells their soaring flight?
The inn implores, with open doors,
with windows barred to wailing might.

The Daughter treads by darkenned tide,
with nurse and mother near her.side.
Through portals four the fires pour,
the crimson flux: the crux of pride.

The Brothers come in battle forms:
their soldiers march in sullen swarms.
The stars are split and starkly lit:
the neon light that never warms.

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The lords of air, of lightless sheen,
from deathless stars or dark between.
Their swords as black as swelling wrack,
with stony edges straight and keen.

Their smithy stands and smears its oil
where breakers crash and currents boil.
From ashen coals the island glows;
it throbs and quakes from Thunder's toil.

Their crystal islands creep and moan
with ice as hard as eldest stone.
With hoary hands they hold the lands;
from flame and snow the snared have flown.

The world is wan in winter's vise;
the shingled shores have sheets of ice;
The howling hills that horror fills
with curving fangs that catch and slice.

The mountains echo measured stride:
through ruined valleys ridges slide;
to wake the morn, the wailing horn
is thickly throated threat of pride.

Their anger pierces over shields
where sighing sand asserts then yields,
where surf expends and sea defends
from alders, elms, and empty fields.

The lunar light is lanced aside
by Sister Sun, the searing bride,
whose dreaded stare is drought's despair
to melt away the Mother's pride.

No soft caress of subtle light,
but bruising gaze of bride aflight;
a witherred breeze through woods and trees;
a breathless sigh abroad at night.

Her Brothers bar the brimming rains;
the weatherworm their whip restrains.
The briars sigh in breezes dry;
the flowers wilt; and flee the cranes.

The Moon occludes the morning sun;
he shutters day with shadows spun.
But yellow hair beyond his snare
is final proof her fire won.

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No darkness drapes the Daughter's dance:
her servants flee the searching glance.
The earth is dust, an aching crust
of witherred trees in weakenning stance.

Where walks their Brother worn by storms
who marched from halls of marble forms?
The stars are split and starkly lit:
the neon light that never warms.

The Brothers split and break the stones,
the Sister sees where silence groans.
But hid from sight by heedless night
the pit retains his pillaged bones.

The war is lost and woe is near:
the clan disperses, clawed by fear.
They flee for life from flailing strife,
alone and lost and lorn and drear.

The Father hides in faithless haze,
the Daughter waits in witherred days.
The Mother gropes the merest hopes
to prise her clan from prisonned maze.

They trapped the Mother, trembling gift,
and moved to loose their maces swift;
the Mother kneels, submits, and seals
her vow to lead and vapours rift.

She leads to path to lightless caves
where minds will die and madness raves.
The Brothers split and break the pit.
The Mother waits by muted waves.

To still their anger, ease the strife,
to share and aid his shatterred life,
she vows her Daughter, avoiding the slaughter,
and buys a peace with barterred wife.

Now golden yellow glows the sky;
now clotted clouds of clamour vie;
now piercing rays; now purple haze;
now diamond stars of darkness sigh.

A dark to drown where dales crease;
a dark to mend and daring cease;
the holy night has healed plight;
a dark to sleep and dream of peace.

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