AR GOF 2 (past and future fragments)
Here lies this small enclosure,
this square of grass
And stone and hidden bone.
Here is the centre of it all
Silent and weeping and keeping tally.
From whence the landscape spreads out,
To where the past and future repairs
With aching knees and a clutch of flowers
And a hollow dream of howling wings
And a due certaintly that nothing will escape it.
What all shun they have embraced-
A domed silence in the earth,
A renunciation of edge and owning.
They surely hold to the habit of time and space for a while.
Outside, looking in, leaning back on emotions familiar,
A slow encroaching magnanimity of forgetfulness, a turn
Towards the cosmological, a more geological topography.
Becoming as light as willowherb,
floating breezewards down to the river.
A spinning wheel on singing axle,
A moonlight and a sunlight thread.
The fabric of things woven here,
inextricable mysteries we are ghosts between,
Caring not a moment to consider the seen nor unseen.
—-
It comes out from desolation on desert wind with a jealous stare
And has been dressed in robes of love
but knows better by far the hearts of men,
The weight of righteousness and of history and of glory unquestioned.
It builds upon the grey and certain unforgivingness of stone.
It chides and chivvies with heavy prophecy the call to war.
It is nothing less than storm on the mountain side, blizzard in the orchard.
—
Much beauty (both light and dark) and wisdom woven into this Simon.
Thanks, Chris!
“Becoming as light as willowherb,
floating breezewards down to the river.”
— a beautiful image of passing. maybe dying is not so bad, after all.
Seeds are easeful metaphors.