Around the
supper table,
he grows his lexicon
while I seem to lose mine.
Until smell and taste and seeing
reduce “simplicity”
to “sublime”;
where diction stutters to a stop
and words – redundant vessels,
an empty mouth and sleeping tongue –
find calm amid verbose festival.
Setting out on a fugitive stroll away from
this garrulous carnival
we find
silence
in nature's skeletal library.
And with nothing to do
but breathe:
we lay us down upon
old green winter grass
to stain our shirt sleeves verdant
and noses to the mossy earth.
We become you Mr Mole,
still alive and temperate
among the porous bones
of all their years; and
echoed round us
up and down the valley
the coo-eed calls of
neighbourly
greeting
that
after centuries salute our coy teenage smiles
and critique
the aching grubby feet of one man's ancient foraging:
the gossiped comings and goings
of every single step
meet all our thoughtless leavings and
these knowing country faces watch
as our every mistake arrives and fades
and is made and unmade
before and before and before...
staining a village history
with all life's pleasure and mourning
from warm baby breath to icy crippled death.
Gaze held against gaze
we merge into one
another,
changing so little and
merely replaying and replaying our historic acts
on a Saturday evening in the 21st century
where time passes
but not always.
(January 2012)