Yesterday the church clock struck twelve times
at what I had believed to be eleven;
that note of one more meant there was one less.
Time evens at the Autumn equinox,
all hours were equal, or dark equalled light;
that night the sky was lime green, navy blue,
with one three-quarter moon towards the east,
shining through despite the LEDs –
where was I? Still alive. An apparition
of a tree that flowers in the forest
with no-one there to witness that it’s real;
time turned back into sweeping circles,
dark everywhere like soot inside a lens,
it holds our hands and drowns us in a dream.
Today’s the next day on the London train,
delicious fields unrolling right outside,
ignored for being much too realistic
I move south in the company of strangers
all busy with our different destinations;
we trust time beats as steady as a bell,
that we will never need to meet each other,
and things will go to plan, of which
there is none. Or which we forget.
No notes strike now, no night shadows the day,
we stream along, we chippings of the sun,
averted from the land and one another
oblivious or heading out that way.
Lyn 