Tread Softly
Tread softly for the night is but
a prelude to the day
And all that lives must die
For thus it is as we've heard say
So many times before.
Before? the end of the beginning
Which itself is only spinning to Infinity
Divinity is but a name for good thought
Transferred into deeds
Where one man counts the cost
The other's praying for his needs
Stop!..A thought
Listen!...A bird is singing somewhere
in the Universe.
Poor thoughts, poor empty thoughts.
How can I say ' I love you?'
What's in a word?
Just frailty.
One, two ,three, four, five ,six ,seven
All good people go to Heaven
But I think otherwise and I'd advise that
You do too
Wouldn't you advise someone that
Hell's by far a better place
And that a misplaced feeling of disgrace is relatively unimportant
Oughtn't one to think so?
No I suppose you wouldn't, couldn't
I like to think a little differently
Not follow in the crowd , eh?
Tread softly, you may say,
Have it your way.
A devil, black and smoky,
Breathing fumes of concentrated orange juice through cold-pudding nostrils
What's wrong with that?
Don't tell me you don't like him
None of that!
I suppose you'd paint a better?
Fetter him in garlic, would you
Could you?
Tread softly
For the night has come and dying is
Out of tune
And all the people on the earth are Gazing at the moon
For soon her light will out
And shouts of anguish then will spill
the air
And everywhere will be a place too small
And anywhere will be the devil's fool
And stars will burst and thirst
for more good deeds to fill up History
And soft bright eyes will dim
And then the earth will lose its spin
And fighting chaos raging for a decade
Will streak the skies with noble deeds
And stars will burst and thirst for More good deeds to fill up History
And then....only Time
Not space but Time
Running, walking ,speeding
Slowing ,
Straight, bent, Lent.
Time without space
And nothing more.
A drop of sun upon a leaf
Warm rays spraying silver on the seas
A fan of light beating colours into flowers
And hours upon hours upon hours..
Tread softly....tread softly...
Flight of the Dove
The tree stands in the lonely field.
It is raining in sleep- filled rivers.
Do not hate, do not love.
beyond hope or caring, sleep or sloth
Dreams deride the thing which is
Whole world's subside and we,
Who think we know what suffering is
Cannot abide the murmuring of the dove.
We who do not hate, we who do not love.
For us the barren fields are soaked
in blood.
Send up the cry! God is dead!
Only beware the fleeing of the dove.
Have you seen her?
Flashing blue across the river?
Did you call out to her?
Splash of film over the river.
Catching sight of her wings of taut gold
Did your heart of a sudden grow old?
As she sliced the sun into pale- white ivory stalks
By the water's edge, disrupting the
moor-hen's song,
Belong, belong! belong, Belong!
But what are you doing here,old man
Fouling the greenways?
Mouth of pomegranate, stench of
tears gone sour,
How could you have tasted the Forbidden fruit
At this ungodlike hour?
You were cast in too strange a mould
A million years of shadow have Trespassed behind your eyes
How could you taste the light
of your eyes?
Rains you heed not, nor the wind's outrage,
But poach at ease beside the blood-lit streams
Not hating, not loving
But tell me, what will you do
When she comes, robed in mist?
At the first hint of dawn,
Will you see her, even in dreams?
Will you stay silent as she drops
To her pale death in the foam
Jagged rock of white mist, Plummeting down through
the air's crystal streams
Lost to the sunrise
Staining the day with new gold
As the sun's rivers melt her through
Will she touch you?
You who are so old?
Will you reach out to feel that Warm rush of feathers
Blue-green-scarlet-gold?
Or are you too old, too old?
As the waters reflect back her causeless song
Will you trace those pyramids of
light
Treading sapphire rings
into the mud?
Ode to a Drug Addict
The great scape of Heaven
Is tortured with images of Death
And the night sky.
Owls swoop in the twilight world
Where Keats went mad
For Beauty 's treacherous eye.
Ode to a fool
Transfixed by the painting
Of some great pig of a man
Eating a fly.
Tempestuous nights and dawns of
Eclipses
Fighting the otherwhere and the
Why.
I
Screech at you from the rooftops
Over the bridge, driven wild
Inside my head
Hammer the bed into white sheets
Grasp cold on
Nothing
Outstare the stars to white lead.
And running,
Hand you the piece of dust
From which I fled.
Evergreen into Ivory white
Evergreen into ivory white
The curlew calls
The morbid manufacturers of day
Attend the passing funeral
Of those who decay
Slowly with time.
The bird rustles in the hedgerow
Hear its mating call
At close of day
the flight of swallows return
No matter where.
The passing shepherd summons the sheepdog
The daffodils burst out in gold
My lover's out there in the cold
The short mist comes
The gap between heaven and earth
And all obscurity
No greater love than this
Will
You
Grant
Me
A
Short
Space
For
Breath
The galleon ship enshrouded in mist
White walls surround the drowned sailor
Shipwrecked
In white water
On the turf of dreams
The bird flying calls
The seamen look up
It is not a white albatross
It is I turning about
Into this white pool
The shoreline crinkles into powder
Tiny and remote
Flying high, the day recedes
Into this ivory-white
Julia Webster studied English & Drama at Exeter University then later studied Integrated Health Sciences at Westminster. Her first play written in 1972 entitled “The Object of the Game” was performed at The Little Theatre, Barbican , Plymouth and was likened by the well known Harvey Crane critic of the South West to works by Pinter and Ionesco. She began writing puppet plays for children and performed at various Albion fairs throughout the U.K. and was selected to attend The Children’s Festival in Austria by Arabella Churchill. She also wrote poetry since her teens and has composed many songs for voice guitar, violin and piano accompaniment which have been performed in various venues across the U.K. and also in India. In 1979 she met her teacher Chogyal Namkhai Norbu Rimpoche and has been a student of his and Dzogchen teachings since then. She currently lives in West London with her family and teaches piano and also practices cranio sacral therapy.