The Pool

The quality of silence
changes, minute to minute,
with the tick of the clock
and the living breathing life
of the fire.  I consider
the end of the road
but cannot see it.  I am
way back here on the trail
with bones that speak to me
when they will, in their own
language of movement and
sitting still - the inner life
of them knows they do not work
as they should:  each piece
designed to fit neatly
to the other now a jumbled mass
of x-ray clouds.  No rest
they give me, time-to-time,
up, down, sitting, lying, no
matter, the words still come -
they never stop speaking.

Today again, drab mist, low
cloud, the day never made it
out of grey - the only 
things with life were the
crimson chests of the bull-
finches with their neat black heads.

I wonder if God will chastise
because I did not get to
church as much as I would
have liked?  Surely the rise
of the road and how my feet
took the stones, would speak
more eloquently than
my full heart
on its knees.

I miss her still, and all those
years I did not know
I would not have.  The black
stretching pool, mirror to the
stars, smooth and unbroken
sits at the centre
of the landscape
and it is deep.
I could drown in it.

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