It imitates what follows and
what went before.
It could be water, creased by
currents meeting. It
could be that - the sky
a ragged blue, perhaps, rolled
liquid on a mirrored rill.
Or sometimes I get drunk and
pace out paths as straight as rulers -
but the curvature of
space-time interferes,
defeats me, curling
with a passive regularity.
When the hills are misty, as
they are today, there's something
happens to the village.
Not that it becomes another
place, a different people, but
as though I see it through
a sherd of bottle-glass.
It could be aether, and
the pebble could be...
could be what it is that ripples
aether. Light, perhaps;
the sunlight beats in waves,
but candles are a murmur,
muted, washing at the edges of
the tables, at the margins of
the bed, a soft and soothing
local perturbation.
Around this disc of yellow light
stand shadows; shades of grey,
of ageing fading into black.
If I'm to leave the darkness,
step into the circle, I must
have a reason, an excuse.
I could be a moth, but I would
finish as a shrivelled corpse.
I could be an actor, but I do not want
to have to face applause.
I could gather books around me,
moulding these old shadows into shelves;
I'll stand among them, read the titles
stamped on dusty spines.
But the lamplight bears me down,
back buckled, sprawling
crooked here among the
empty shades of purpose.