By the river I meandered
Where oily-black water runs silent.
Malevolently, it tears at the eroding bank
And dares me to walk more closely.

Under a twisted oak I ducked
Past ancient bark and sinewy branches.
Patiently, it awaits one who ducks not so low,
And harbours a dark enmity in the long shadows.

Around a silent bog I navigated
Mud occasionally ******* at my shoes.
Gurgling, it pulls lethargically at passing limbs,
And begs for a new visitor its fermented depths.

Darkness arrives
But I'm not finished with the sun.
Hey, I was using that!
Those gears turn
Without any input from me.

Like a conveyor belt
We're whisked away
To the shadow side
And dropped into the darkness.

Nobody here gets out of this day with sunshine.
Our freedom from darkness only, finally, comes
When we're well and truly sleeping
And wish it wouldn't come so soon.

In a time I never knew
Thankfully, outside of my own lifetime,
Your stories did not exist.

With sentences carved simply and economically
You weave ideas that engage us wholly
And open to us, image-by-image,
Memories of experiences that we have never had.
Nostalgia for other lives.

Or if you turn in another direction
You bring close around us,
The walls
The darkness
The night.
Suddenly, and with the echo of distant guns.

In our own worlds, the colours are a little
Less fragile. The smells a little less familiar.
Our interactions, the lives that end or begin,
With our every breath, a little less considered.

I do not know how your words
Bring somehow more than this
Wordless life that surrounds us,
But something in those pages,
Brings voices brighter than the sun which also rises.
More thoughtful than an old man upon the sea.
Neither the rain, nor the wind
Whispers so clearly.

It freezes you in place,
A cold gust of wind from the North.
It locks you in your home
And has you hover at the window.

It freezes you in place,
A fear of where you are heading.
Your only measure of freedom
How far away, the walls.

It freezes you in place,
A mirror that holds that other you.
Those eyes are always looking back
When you chance to look at them.

It freezes you in place,
When you embrace the immobile.
Tiny tendrils of inaction
Sliding over icy skin.

It freezes you in place,
But a thaw melts the icy clutches.
A thought, an idea, a chance –
Anticipation is a burning fire within.

Yesterday died late last night in the darkness.
Today was born in the small hours.

It lay there quietly gurgling
Alone and vulnerable in the inkiness.

At the break of the sun
That stabbed then tore the horizon,
I knew it was mine.

[Hint - it's fun to read this one out loud :) ]*

Upon a crusty and spinning crag
Herbert's trusty craft did set,
Out beyond the path of Mars
In an asteroid belt they met.

Picked from out of thousands there
He selected a rocky home,
The perfect kind of rocky mass
To end his spacely roam.

First Ceres was too large and bold
And Pallas was too pale,
Old Vesta flew with sluggish wings
And Hygiea seemed too frail..

Ah, Sylvia seemed a likely rock
And her orbit seemed fine too,
But t'was Juno caught his eye at last
So what else could he do?

He sat his craft upon that rock
And loosed his robot throng,
Soon they mined and smelted ore
And built a structure strong.

That dome rose up with welded struts
To stand on a bright-lit plain,
The jewel-like panes filled out the place
O'er that kingdom he would reign.

Industrious 'bots and a stately home
So there did Herbert rule,
O'er a stark and rocky, lonely view
In the asteroid belt so cruel.

T'was far away to the nearest soul
No one to share Herb's tea,
To simply chat or share a bite
How lovely would that be?

Deep beneath old Juno's crust
'Bots mined for all their worth
Pulling out rare stuff and gems
And sending them to Earth.

But all the gold and diamond stones
Could hardly even start,
To fill the void that Herbert felt
Where he knew he kept a heart.

Yet, several rocky asteroids out
Across that rocky belt,
Another set upon her task
With ores and **** to melt.

Past Callisto and Iris zones
Where Cybele and Psyche spin
Fair Susanna tended Hektor's mines
Of silver, zinc and tin.

Now orbits often twist and dance
And trade with one another,
Where one boulder once was kin
There soon will be some other.

T'was thus that Herbert's Juno rock
Slowly made it's way,
To catch-up Susie's Hektor world
And shadow it one day.

Sue looked out her glass abode
To see what blocked the sun,
Then seeing Juno with its mines
A visit seemed like fun.

Toward a spot near Herbert's ship
Suzanna's came a-falling,
Imagine Herbert's bright surprise
Seeing visitors a-calling.

A shapely suit with bubble head
And jet-pack soon came floating,
To Herbert's door that afternoon
The sight had him emoting.

"Well hello there friend, and who are you
That to my rock comes knocking?"
"Just another miner fool
Whose sun your Juno's blocking"

"In just a little while, I'm sure
Our asteroids will part,
So why not stay a little while
And a friendship we can start?"

Double shipments soon they made
To send away to Earth
While their robots toiled each day
The sweethearts shared their mirth.

Great love did our Herb and Susie share
Built on those pleasant talks
And soon a tractor beam they fixed
Between their drifting rocks.

And still today in spacers' lore
They talk about that tether,
That linked two hearts among the rocks
Two asteroids bound together.

In fading denial, I faced the leaves
And scattered hoses
And the pots still distributed about the yard
Where seeds had once ****** stalks and leaves,
And colours had burst, among the greenery.

In the chill wind, I removed them
The ice-encrusted aquatic plants
And exposed black cold water below.
Sunk a bubbler into the pond's depths
And caught glimpses of the orange inhabitants.

To the warmth, I retreated
As the sun turned up the shadows
And the creeping, early approach of night
Intruded upon the late afternoon,
And the winter, upon the fall.