Listen. Put on lightbreak
like the loafers that don’t quite fit
but will in time. Wipe the sands of shame
and other people’s expectations from your eyes and
waken into miracle. The audience
has faded with the stars. Walk soundlessly
through the forest that breathes and dreams
with you. The whole of your consciousness
lies awake under the tenements – under
those arched brows and sketched bridges
that now reveal themselves to be mere
constructs. Step back and reconsider;
the sugar docks under the printed
lines of to-do lists and forgotten notes
to self might be only sweet nothings
or may prove to launch a thousand new thoughts in
moments. The centuries turn their
heads, watching from above your gentle
meander of self-discovery. Seconds fall
graceful as autumn leaves as time un-
locks. And open under the
triumphant break of day lie the clocks
their ifs and shoulds and mustn’ts blowing like dust
from pages in the morning breeze, a faded ashen
hill. Their inherited books and
ancient sayings, words twisting upon
themselves like the nearby oak, barely ripple
the grass beneath your feet. Turn your back to closed
doors, all gathered to distil
your pride, taking shots at your worth
with bad aim. Breathe. Step cautiously
but confidently. Fall back and float downstream, carefree
like happy berry pickers
in the afternoon sun. Listless swirls convene
in that hollow cavity somewhere behind your left
ear, far above your head. Carried on the wind
one voice talks to us – yes, listen
and bundle your breast in a cloak of twilight.
Crisp the air with breath. In the clearing burns
a bonfire, cackling and crackling its song.
It carries away the second and the years
fall down, prostrate before you, curious and shy.
For here, time is but a friend, emasculate
but brimming with wisdom. The open clocks tick
till the heart’s in a jacket of snow –
grasp tight your dusky garment; call out
to its stars to warm and thaw. When the boughs
stoop low and weighted with a thousand storms
and the head’s in a helmet white and
adrift – stop. Close your eyes to the darkness.
Listen. With a breath enter the heady scent
of a dozen stolen midnights. Eternally recall –
the song sleeps to be wakened by the morning ear bright.
Through the treetops wafts the breeze, silent
yet carrying the tune of not-yet-roused
always just out of reach, ever teasing.
Listen. Put on morning.
Waken into falling light.