Album: Ian Anderson: The Secret Language Of Birds

Postcard Day

My eyes are white circles above cheekbones on fire:
pale hand gripping my pen.
Rounding up to the zero, adding infinite fractions,
letting nine become ten.
Two pink doves strut the shingles
picking crumbs from the breakfast I saved
for you dear. And I wish you were here
on this postcard day.

Focus on the fine indeterminate line
where the sky meets the sea.
Desperate midweek words, banal and absurd
freely flow out of me.
Well, I may be a hostage to summer
but I'm a hostage, not a slave.
And I'm clear that I wish you were here
on this postcard day.

Precious cargo of flotsam: mixed memories on an ocean tide
swim madly with spice from the orient
on a mystery watery carpet ride.
But with the sun going down, the wind goes around;
blows them back out of mind.

My eyes are white circles staring down past the point
of my restless pen.
While the ghosts of my youth all sworn to the truth
call my name again.
Two brown legs don't make a summer.
But two brown arms couldn't keep me away.
Well, my dear, I wish you were here
on this postcard day.