Step into the Rainbow by Colin R Brookfield (little red riding hood read aloud .TXT) 📖

dissolving all round.

Then the scene changed, but it was one he had seen

that had clearly appeared in a long ago dream.

 

Then she smiled once again and followed his eyes

to the fabulous setting now covering the skies.

For miles in the air and encircled around

were great ivory tusks reaching out of the ground.

 

And millions of glittering rainbows in space

were clasped within its tusked embrace,

and fair things flew in this heavenly high

that never could grace an indifferent sky.

 

But this wasn’t a dream it was perfectly real,

with much more of a vibrant and palpable feel.

Then a touch to his hand regained her attention,

attending his ears for the things she would mention.

 

“Perhaps I awakened a memory,” she said,

“for I spun this same vision long ago in your head,

but there were things to be read from those shapes in your dreams,

though left for your mind to discover the means.

So let me relate what your mind had been gleaning

and recapture that dream’s allegorical meaning.

Its image was besieged by an indifferent sky,

meaning indifferent thoughts where they tangle and vie.

 

Whilst the tusks were but symbols that offer the way

through which indifferent thoughts could lose their display,

and the rainbow’s inner and lighter formation

is the mind that has reached discrimination.

 

For the rainbow reflects what awareness imparts

when it looks upon things through their composite parts.

Thus a mind is unfettered with freedom to fly,

there is no other path to the heavenly sky.

 

But that was your dream and this the reality,

for you stand at the gates of your immortality.”

Then she moved very close from the place she was leaving

until only one person was standing there breathing.

Thus destiny merged the androgynous pair

and another fair form winged into the air.

 

The Giver Taketh

The sound was caught before it fell

and left no echo there to tell

and the word before it flew,

never reached where it was due,

and the breeze within the hand

trees were silent o’er the land,

and the eye that saw the world

darkness o’er the earth unfurled.

 

Nocturnal Spy

Helius master of the heavens,

Selene his reflective eye,

Helius watchful never sleeping,

Selene his nocturnal spy.

 

Nyx the bringer of the shadow,

Caster of the land in night,

Helius through his lunar mirror

doth the night by proxy light.

 

Nyx the bringer of the shadow,

silent o’er the land bedew,

secretive and skulking,

flees beneath a cloud from view.

 

Minds Abstract Processes

Means by which to understand

what can’t itself be touched or seen,

can be, but from its issue found.

Through time, by paths empirical emerge

nascent mappings of its margins,

thus objective man turns back upon himself

to place precarious and tentative, a foot,

within a daunting inner universe,

the abstract place from which he came

and origin of his every thought.

 

Felis Australis

All the experts tell you that

Australia has no native cat,

Ferals yes; they all agree,

roam in parts abundantly.

But I met one quite insistent,

its kind had always been existent.

 

In 1969, the month was June,

a night made day, ‘neath a desert moon,

upon a sandy track unfamiliar

between Carnarvan and Minilya.

Nothing moved with sound to scatter,

a stillness, even thought might shatter,

course red sand lay all around

for endless miles, without a bound.

 

A sudden movement at my side

revealed a feline, eyes open wide,

sitting over two feet high,

ten feet away, not seeming shy.

Long in leg and sleek in form,

tufted ears and coloured fawn.

Out of reach of any cover,

unsure, we looked upon each other.

Eventually its interest spent,

quick as it came, the creature went,

leaving me bemused to wonder,

“Had imagination made a blunder?”

Not so; I had a witness

for its testimental fitness.

 

The Evacuee

A man stepped from a small red car

at a lonely country spot,

from where, fifty years before

was a memory not forgot.

 

A chill ran through his soul

as he gazed around,

for all that lay before his eyes

was flat and well tilled ground.

 

The little brook still babbled

to clearly mark the place,

where once a little cottage stood

that now had left no trace.

 

His mind went drifting back in years

to a boy too young exploring,

whose feet were hot and tired

and rest they were imploring.

 

Doggedly he’d trudged

along a country lane,

the air was still of human sounds

in Nature’s own domain.

 

A rabbit here, and there a bird

from out the hedgerow peep,

the symphony of Nature’s sounds

all but lulled his mind to sleep.

 

But sounds of trickling water

came faintly to his ears,

and soon, an old stone bridge

with a brook beneath, appears.

 

Then a tiny wicket gate

within the hedge revealed

a cosy ancient cottage

in a grassed and hedged small field.

 

“Hello young man; please come in”

came a voice from know not where;

then, beckoning within a porch,

was a lady, with white hair.

 

Many visits to this cottage,

the boy made from thereon,

but his was but a brief sojourn,

one day, the boy was gone,

returned once more to London,

now that the blitz was done.

The years rolled by; the boy returned

a man, too late by far,

who had just become the owner,

of a brand new, small red car.

 

Except the Soul

Except the soul,

all is leased nought you own.

Earth’s treasures expire,

with flesh and bone.

All things are ephemeral made,

the soul the only precious jade,

that undefiled it will convey

its treasure to Elysium’s glade.

 

Unrequited Love

Head over heels at the very first sight

as I gazed and I longed till my senses took flight.

There were others that held a place in my heart,

though none held a candle to what you impart.

But how can I love what cannot requite,

by more than what’s given that comes into sight.

Whatever framed you, eclipsed the stars,

until sadly your petals fall into my vase.

 

We Will Wing on its Sighs

We are more than our footprints in last Winter’s snow,

that has melted away with nothing to show.

As the Winds of Time pass, they will carry us on,

we will wing on their sighs to the place we belong.

 

But we cannot leave what they would have stay,

it must join the leaves for the breezes to play.

We may linger in abstract in somebody’s mind,

though were we not that, ere life was consigned?

 

The Secret of the Special Tree

Sister staggered down the towpath

of a disused waterway,

struggling with a fishing rod

as her strength began to flay.

Defiantly her weighty catch

fought and gave no quarter

but she hadn’t caught a fish,

it was her brother in the water.

He was having swimming lessons,

they had worked on it for ages

and confidence was growing,

things had reached their final stages.

Then fishing rod and line

were discarded with disdain

as he slid into the water

with his confidence aflame.

 

The water foamed as skilful arms

performed their hopeful flaying,

but down he went like a piece of lead

until he hit the bottom, praying.

Luckily he held his breath

and could vaguely see the bottom,

there was rubbish everywhere,

discarded and forgotten.

 

Then off he went like a submarine,

towards the other bank,

past soggy shoes, old Wellingtons

and a rusty water tank.

Now he was slightly miffed,

for he wasn’t one to lose,

though he did feel rather special

with his underwater cruise.

 

Now all this secret training

was for a special reason,

to fit in with his larger plan

for later in the season.

Now all the local boys

swam in a nearby river,

but ego kept him from this place

till he’d learned to deliver.

 

At last the day arrived

at the nearby swimming place,

where swimmers cleaved the waters

with elegance and grace.

Now a learner at this place

would be sure to suffer jeering,

but now with independent style,

he didn’t mind appearing.

The river at this swimming place

undercut an old oak tree,

and trees were sometimes hollow,

so he thought he’d go and see.

So he sank into the river,

no-one noticed, luckily

as he explored the underwater

beneath the large old tree.

 

He discovered it was hollow

with an entrance underwater,

so a cunning plan began to form,

he would give those boys no quarter.

The scene was set, so in he jumped

and made a mighty splash,

having focused their attention,

he made his underwater dash.

 

His head came to the surface

inside the hollow part,

where he stayed for several minutes,

till he heard the shouting start.

Then down he went and swam

some thirty feet away,

so as not to cast suspicion

of where his hide-out lay.

 

He would disappear for minutes,

sometimes three or four,

judging time was easy,

he could hear them keeping score.

His fame spread far and wide

and people came to see,

but they never found the secret

about his special tree.

 

Transient Words

Some words remain, some lose their stay,

fleet in appearance, then conjured away,

elegant words losing their worth,

vernacular bringing them closer to earth.

Esoterica always claiming the day,

with words to which we are not au fait.

 

This Vision Hath my Constancy

That I might be her perfume

so closely to surround.

 

That I might be her shadow

and follow her around.

 

That I might be the echo

her feet upon the ground.

 

That I might be her sigh

my paradise is found.

 

Absence Makes......

Though eyes do rest ‘pon their desire

in time the capture slakes the fire,

for hunger only spurs the hunt

that appetite replete will blunt.

But what is nature, one must bear

yearning new and changing fare,

or what was had, no longer there.

 

Paw Old Me

Pussy isn’t silly, he knows what it’s all about;

he settles on my new laid clothes to stop me going out.

He’s not keen when my attention has wandered off elsewhere,

so he dumps upon the book I’m reading and doesn’t turn a hair.

 

He’s not fond of what I’m covered with, still, he gives a purr

then snags my clothes all over till it’s looking more like fur.

 

I place him on his nice new bed and stoke his little head,

then he waits until I’m fast asleep to sneak into my bed.

 

He’ll cause mayhem with the birds up our apple tree,

then calmly wander over to get a fuss from me.

 

Leave a kitchen cupboard open and he’s in there like a shot,

to finish in the cutlery drawer, stuck tight. What a clot!

 

I’m snoozing on the couch, so he lands like half a ton,

then takes off like a bullet from the muzzle of a gun.

The lovely rug that I’ve just bought, he doesn’t like one bit,

he pulls it all around the floor till I nearly have a fit.

 

He meows for dinner and for going out

then for coming in again, and more-oftenly – for nowt.

But at least I know I’m the boss round here – a fact that’s going to last.

I must go now, he’s calling me. He gets unhinged if I’m not fast.

 

Brief Allotted Whiles

How many candles lit and guttered

that left their scent upon the air,

but that was in a bygone time

and not a trace it left to share.

 

Many feet have come and gone,

brought their sadness and their smiles

and left to each along the way,

cherished thoughts, for brief allotted whiles.

 

Portents Lie in Imagery Bound

Music of the soul who writes the score,

whose fickle hand ‘pon manuscript doth draw,

of what seems right and what seems not

of equal right it doth allot.

It sees the gamut of emotion done

to strains that in fitful sequence run.

Does ambivalence veil an arcane masque

that intellect be challenged by a ciphered task?

Should dexter’s probity languish out of sight

that sinister be set an Icarus flight?

 

Thus portents lie, in imagery bound,

unsought by some, by others found.

Janus points the way he visioned all about,

knew what lay within, knew what lay without.

But caution to the eye, set amidst the blind,

prudence, is pretending it’s no seeing kind.

Feign of fallow mind deigning to agree

amongst those that thought they saw,

though in truth could never see.

 

Those of Grace

Those of grace are early called

to the incommunicable place,

though their memory like music stays,

when eyes and ears can find no trace.

 

Feelings warm and fondly treasured,

freely given and received,

though short the journey with you travelled,

‘twas not made that yours be grieved.

 

Love weaves a strong and subtle cord,

a bond through space and time

that it may hold together

all that is sublime.

 

Love provides a special place

to enter when we sleep,

though it can’t allow its secrets

into our waking moments creep.

 

So remember though you slumber,

there is a meeting place

between the here and after

where loved ones still embrace.

 

Feelings

A sound, a scent, a touch, a glimpse

to some with perfect warmth agrees,

whilst others feelings aren’t the same,

what’s warm to some, makes others freeze.

 

The Thrushes Song

Lesser moments come and perish

and then a moment left to cherish,

a heart that’s touched by something gone,

as flies away the thrushes song.

 

The Cat and the Wizard

The cat watched the wizard at Elysium’s door

as he welcomed the creatures from every known shore.

But cats soon get bored so it started to preen

and was struck by the thought that few humans were seen.

 

So the wizard was asked by the curious cat

could there be a reason accounting for that?

Humans are errant the wizard replied

They are deaf to the voice each one has inside.

But now I