A museum, a post office, a hoard of trinkets:
Think of all these things, and beyond them.
A room, vast as knowledge, filled clumsily
From top to tail with books and songs and poems and pictures;
Accoutrements of one life, lived.
All is quiet, save for the slow, sonorous ticking of time.
All is still.
Until:
A pale silver sliver of a
Jewel, locked loose in its box, starts to slip forward from
The chests and crates and jars and
Begins to roll, threads its winding way through
The labyrinth of shelves,
Picking up speed,
Brought back from beyond by
A snatch of song, a whisper of
Heartache…
… and drunk as a skunk I am roaming, reeling
Raw from a gig with the lads.
And as we chorus, cradling
Dreams and hearts and
Each other in our arms,
The night above is infinite
And the ground below is solid
And the starlight flows like our laughter
As we stumble home.
Time does not stand still. It never does. But in that moment, a
Measure of starlight, a snatch of song, come together and
Crystallise.
And deep in the recesses of the room
A pale silver sliver of a jewel
Is catalogued, logged, noted and filed
Before being locked away, for who knows how long…
…and then I am back. The gem once more
Is in its rough box, the key in the lock
While on the radio, a song ends.
All is quiet, save for the ticking of the clock
And the scratching of my pen.
All is still.