Phoenix
I have gathered stardust
from the far reaches of the galaxy,
from the diamante drifts of time and space,
to recreate the planet that I knew – my home –
with colours that once fed my eyes:
the damson shades of distant hills,
horizons, azure blue, where sea flowed into sky;
the emerald green of spring showered grass;
the damask blush of a dove’s breast.
Here I have no rainbow to pluck my colours from.
God did not break his covenant with man.
This time there was no ark, no flood,
no rain to fight the fires that swept the world.
I clutched an ice-cold prism in my hand
as I watched the singing colours scorch and die.,
then our ship soared through the realms
of outer space.
I have culled a spindrift of buttercup gold
and will hurl it through Earth’s ionosphere;
a sunburst for her sombre places.
She will cast her knighted colours off.
