The Fisher King

My Father built this paradise one miracle at a time

Tiring out the day with busy love

The world with all its trouble

Surrendered to the unmistakable concern

Of a working man’s white flag

He captured the earth in a vulnerable affirmation

And lay gentle that good night

And over a walled garden of startling luminescence

The joy sun, fearless

In shining unrivalled might

Rises like one and the same

My Father knows that the working day is a steady triumph

Exercised in the late sketch overtime

He is the master draughtsman

Bargaining for better days against a factory fire

He wrestles with cosmic effort

To tend our three bedroom Heaven

And he ought to know that the castles of sand we raised tall upon Ionian shores

Are the walls that move the madness of the long night a little closer to the dawn

And those countless caves of purple quartz

The old burnt island jewel

Not half the treasure in his heart

For my Father

Fisher King of Kokkini Hani

Walk ever in the sun