"It's not you" she said
Well, you know the rest, a familiar scene

Hurt and confused, I reached for the first words that sprang to mind
"Betrayal, betrayal!" I cried

She looked at me coldly, and slowly replied
"You can only betray that which you love"

And with that, she upped and went;
Sailed clean out of my life

After she had gone, I thought about what she'd said
And I realised she was right
As my thoughts turned to that garden, on that night.

I now know why the universe does not distinguish the days
Any more than we would a grain of sugar in a jar
I have dreamt and in that dream I awoke
To the language of everything I did not understand
I heard in its muffled voice, an infinite joke
As I smelt the sea thousands of miles inland.
I slept and in that sleep I saw me, as I’d once been:
Transformed from the dead, and free from transgression
I swam garlanded in the sea, and renewed by its briny waves,
The days had stretched forever along the coast
But I did not know then that nothing would last
How every atom that was me would accelerate through a new host
And that only dreams and memories could transport me
Back to the tang of the sea that day, and the scent of blossom
Yet I think that I finally understand now the reticence of the stars
To tell not of a future but reflect only their past.

I dreamt of me, I think, was it really me
Blowing roughly through the rain
I seemed so sure of my way, too true of my mark
Riding through the forest in the dark .
Was I ever that bold when young
So naked, and plucked clean of doubt.
When had the light gone out?

She was there, she was there,
At the clearing in the copse, where I knew she’d be.
Only hair covering flesh, which glowed despite the moon.
Her eyes shining through the night
Were a brimming cup of jewels
And she was mine, yes once she was mine,
Were we ever really so young, so divine?

But, I remember now, ah yes, all too well
The clothes she wore to cover the swell.
And how different it was after a time
Never so bold, softer, wiser , but still divine.
Yet fear had been delivered in a forests scream
The truth of wisdom, she said, ends the dream.

But now, all too soon it seems, all too soon,
Stooped beneath the light of a moon,
Time has melted, the beauty I had once known,
And under the hood, stands now a crone.
But written absolute, through her every crag and line,
Is that while I may have fallen, she stands, still divine.

Here, on ruffled waves
broken limbs sing
their gargled agonies

Oh, those trying eyes
tossed up high
for the gull's to feast

All is only ever pain
In the ocean

Yet the mind reasons
through the spume of chaos
and clings to buoyant lies

I think they are like waves, the dead
Each moving differently from the last,
But interpreting the same dream,
And all just made of water.
The apple never falls from the mind
After us, it does not decay;
It remains budding and blood red
Those who tasted it, still taste it.
And we on the shore that are living
Still hear them breathing softly in the tide.

The sky blackens now
The voices fall silent
The moon hangs pale and thin
The oceans exhale now
The breeze speaks softly
The tides become dolefully still
The gods are absent now
The stars remain hidden
The universe pauses for you

In life, through it all, there lies
A truth that never dies.
It’s the voice in your name
That calls through fires
And dances in the smoke from the flame.

Here in this wood, Oh how it rains!
Yet still that call remains.
In peals it’s singing clear,
The sigh of a thousand pains
From the voice I’ll never hear.