The running hills of our old man, up and up they run,
His skin, so soft and sweet, the emerald of our land,
Tinkling under the sun’s fingers, grow, my dear ones,
The blossoms, you are, the woods and the fields,
The sky, a corpulent blue, the animals, and all the life you hum.

Smelted sapphire, swollen streams – streams beating life,
As cold as copper, as hot as fire, down the valleys they tread,
Leaping, skipping, beating, slicing the air as would a knife,
The scents of water, pristine and dewy, dripping hope,
Pounding through bursts of promises, fragrantly ripe.

Smeared haphazardly with splotches of gold and ruby,
The meadow tickles the trees and the swaying stream
With needles the colour of jade – fingers so thin and wiry –
And the sky, an abyss of blue, scattered with clouds,
Sporadic and youthful, trekking across their lives: a cobalt sea.

His wrinkled fingers, a fury of leaves, burning bright,
Spewing flames, various shades of greens, shimmering
In the sun’s glazing gaze, weaving what is of the light,
Whether it’s dawn, when the furious orange chase away the bitter blue,
Or dusk, when the sun bleeds out, its life seeping out of sight.

Bruises blossoming across the sky’s bleeding red,
The leaves rattle a good luck to the sun as it droops low,
Silent, the stark night glistens with a strange gleam, a stray thread,
Not the twinkle of stars, not the flicker of torchlight,
But the glacial gaze of predators, awaiting a step misled.

Shattering as a pair of hooves tread into the water,
The stream whispers warnings – waves slapping the banks;
Ears twitching, eyes flitting, the doe freezes; the heaving falters,
Leaves silence their melancholy, insects stop tittering,
The whole island gazes on as the doe’s eyes freeze in fear, shattered.

The running hills of our old man, up and up they run,
His skin, so soft and sweet, the emerald of our land,
Tinkling under the moon’s fingers, perish, my dear ones,
The thorns, you are, the flames and the fears,
The sky, a vacant black, the animals, and all the curse you hum.