Buried Treasure

The air, cold as a knife, sun
warm as a bath -
sparrows dash past my head,
mate in the hedges:  silent
road, silent houses, all eyes
indoors looking out through
glass:  it's a wonder the
police aren't here
telling me
I spend too long digging.

Memories dredge up like large
stones surface in my beds -
long gone yet here, ephemeral,
fleeting, seeds on the
wind, blown
to the soil of my mind,
never fail to grow:  rank
ground, gardening
on stony soil bites
my tools, blunts
my edges.  So much

light lost to the past, shoe-
leather worn on roads, I
don't know what to say
so I stay quiet, eyes
down as I handle weeds and
earthworms, stop to hear
the wind and the birds, the
only sounds
echo within me like a bell.

Too hard to tell by tongue
I write for no-one's
eyes - still pinned and
shunned, metal-pierced,
my stigmata stay
emblems of horror and
terror-days
in a place of no care.

Now, here, my days
in the sun and the silent
air sustain, near the
rushing river, near the
waterfall, the loch laps
the tiny burial ground
where all my treasure lies.

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