Bucket List

I can see the white stile
on the hill
lit up by side-glancing sun
as it goes down - over the
gorge and the river, over the water,
past all the dark green trees
covering the mountainside, all
the way past the new, raw, red
scar of road, past the heather,
bracken, stone - the manmade
wood as beacon for feet
treading high places inhospitable
air:  don't stay up there.  I see
the clouds come in, the dark weather
patterning, threatens rain, threatens
winter, my small tame garden
rough, and ready Highland terrain -
no manicures here - grass always
needs a trim.  Beyond the water
and gorge, white stone, stained
red with time, dirty face
indecipherable words moss-hidden.
What would mine say?  I came
I tried, God, I tried so hard my
fingers were bone and my heart
exploded.  Brain overload.  Blood-poison
in the cold September air
as the season changes again, leaves
me here
with no words on my tongue
and the silent empty stretching
sphere:  the heart of God
doesn't care.  Was never here.
Was never me:  did not see
what I have seen and etched
into my skin - the seconds, the
living scoring blood-letting seconds
that make up our terrain.
I will never try it, that ascent
up the dark tree-covered hill
above the dark churning water and
its abysmal currents.  What is
the point?  My own ascent
is done.  I am on the promontory
looking at stretching water
and see the sun go down on me
and my tainted heart - my loves
written clear on my skin
for any fool to see.  I go to join
the dust of all those gone, all the
breathing-in of aeons:  growth
hitting us in the face as we learned
to build, learned
to live with all we are
and all we cannot understand.

There is no path of telling, no
enlightened age, only dearth of
limb and a being emptied
like an upturned bucket on the road.

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