‘I see you everywhere, in the stars, in the river, to me
you’re everything that exists; the reality of everything’
– Virginia Woolf, Night and Day
Pretty good shape considering all that rain and wind have done.
I knew your face but have stopped now: it’s gone, is just a memory
or a dream. I am no wiser, am riddled out; there is no assurance
or spiritual gene and too much space lies inbetween. Echoes
echo in empty cathedrals, then ones and zeros fade away.
What happened to my friend does not add up but still will happen
to you. You remind me of him but you should not. Somehow believe
or refuse to be saved. Wonders of life prevail, dream bells announce
a high voice singing on our way toward the house. The angel of the hills,
a siren of mercy, lives a life without love, with whispers of mist.
Love comes quietly to those who wait, keeping to well-worn paths,
afraid of meaning but not doubt and diversion. Stone words are not for all;
it is easy enough if they come back to you. Who are the understood?
In the here and now I kiss another, then the day goodbye and turn off the light.
The future archive is in my shed; our tribe is lost and always has been.
In the oak tree, crows are calling the sound of decay, and the cat
makes the best of the world as cowboys do when they die in the trying.
If the world is saved it doesn’t look like it. I get on with my life
but daylight ends and groaning doesn’t help me see straight in the dark
or hide the sound of destruction and decay. Nothing is within reach.
Where is understanding? Find a way in. As you come close it moves away.
If words and paint imprison you then disappear. My assisted collapse
is to make others play the game by your rules before another war breaks out.
It’s neighborhood blues, backlash blues; I don’t want universal, just different.
The joke’s on us, I don’t know what to say or how we can ever find the answer.
There is no answer. Every time I pray, I seek space to build a silence,
but the noise from the road intrudes. Last night, fireworks on the creek,
tonight it will be something else, a storm of fire or hail, a wind from nowhere,
or a telephone call from the future dead. Shadows trick me into sleep,
I kneel on the floor and reflect: little pieces of me still staring back at you.
© Rupert M Loydell
Illustration Nick Victor