Our stairs are made of wood
The trees that they once were
Probably grew nearby
One hundred years ago
When our house was built.

Maybe they grew in a copse on a hill,
Spent decades swaying in the wind
Tasted the rain, and the soil
And the carbon dioxide
Exuded by creatures of the forest
And people who lived among them
And those that would one day come
And bring them to the ground.

And now they bring me
To my bedroom every night
Where I doze quietly off
While inhaling the cool night air from the window
And puffing out carbon dioxide dreams.

On the surface of the ever-turning sphere
Corners blend with curves in the vapour
Shape is lost in currents of wind and fog
Treetops know what their trunks do not
We sit among the falling droplets
They condensed upon the needles
And get shaken loose by the breeze
This shower falls with pleasing staccato rhythm
But the sun seeks to burn away the veil
And lay bare our insecurities.

Extend your hand, palm up
Silk - a long bolt of it,
unfurls across your palm
Cold on contact
And smooth
And smooth and smooth
Dragging a crisp wind behind it
As it falls away like a solid liquid

Extend your hand,
A gelatinous orb, almost sticky to the touch
But not quite.
Rubbery, resilient, responsive
Pulled under the weight of gravity
To bulge and droop over the edges of your hand
When you drop it, it hesitates as it lets go.

Extend your hand
Feel the weigh of a solid masonry cube
The greyest concrete
Each crenelation of its surface
Like a dry-skin pore
The corners and edges hold their shape sharply
Dragging fingers make a rasping sound
And a ceramic-like ring as it slips from your hand

Extend two hands together
Like to catch a stream of water
But instead you cradle
A tired and content weeks-old kitten
It adjusts its position, and curls up
Content with the warmth of your hands
You feel the soft, purring of velvet fur
It feels implicit trust, warmth and security
For its always-pending next nap.

An entire genre of poetry
Crafted from the pondering of the page blank.
I have a mild disappointment as they
Are submitted into the stream
Of word sculptures that cross my desk
Emerging from nothing
From the art of just getting started.
And even so, here I sit
Having just pulled together one myself.

What silliness is this?
This stage, long intended for strutting and fretting,
Seems now exclusively for naked emperors,
And there are so many waiting back stage.

Just our clothing choices
Make the weather,
So they say.

For wont of hat or mittens thick
We'd get outside
And play.

With just a rummage thru' the drawer
We'd get outside
And wander.

Just some woollies and a knitted scarf
And get outside today.

Come and sit there on the cushion
Our chopping and mixing and baking are done
We must just sit and talk about nothing
And enjoy all these things
That we built as the sun went down

Come and share a drink with me
So much out there is pointless and lost
But in here there is a plan and an order
This we eat first, and then we'll eat that
And when we've drunk our glasses dry
We can fill them again

Come and help me gather these things
Stacked and washed and dried
We'll put them all on a shelf
Or into a purpose-made drawer
And they will be there for us again
On another lazy ordinary evening

Until one day our hearts
Will cry for want of just one more