Wednesday, 12 July 2017

Sunrise on Mt. Bromo

Writing about the sunrise on Mt.Fuji reminded me of another moving sunrise I had been lucky to experience at Mt.Bromo in Indonesia. It had inspired a poem that is very close to my heart and one which I have guarded. Today, I realized that this blog feels quite personal and safe and so I felt like posting it!


Sunrise on Mt. Bromo

The wind bites
There is a movement in the dark 
Stillness, quiet chaos
The water's rising in this ark

Who are these sailors?
What is this ship?
Where is the captain 
With a crackling whip?

We sail forever on
To what end, I wonder 
The darkened seas behind
And vast expanses yonder 

Darkness below us, above us,
Darkness afore and ahead 
A dense, opaque blackness 
We pierce and penetrate

I grow fondness and kinship 
For the sailors of the night,
I know not their voices 
And faces all out of sight.

Yet together we struggle 
To keep our vessel afloat 
Our ark of the covenant 
Our tattered old boat.

Then something changes.
The dark sphere splits in two 
A line of hope on the horizon
Seeping in sanguine hue

It is fire, yet it's mellow 
It is violent, yet it's calm
It rips and rages, yet it's silent 
And all it touches it embalms

This new hue shows the oceans blue 
The sky above bathed in pink
The mountains green, the corals gold
The birds of many feathered ink

I see the faces of all my friends 
Their souls aglow in glistening eyes 
And in their smiles I find myself 
Reflected in the morning light 

I am muscle, I am flesh
Yet dust and wind and music too
For I am what I feel within me
And who I am; I am to do.

This boat is but a fleeting vessel 
We row today and 'morrow sink
But boat and oar and all these men
Are bathed in light in this blink

And in this blink we make music
A symphony so divine
Of sea and sail and wind and men
Our songs of yore till all of time


No comments:

Post a Comment