QUIETER                                                                               

 

Quieter these days

save for the scratch of sole against

pavement as he fights to lift his feet.

That’s his goal now: to keep moving

as well as at any time he’d taken

quite for granted the stride he’d had,

now a harsh memory cutting him

deep in his dark emptiness.

 

He’d always walked,

born with the bug now lost, moved on

for a reason he doesn’t fully follow;

a blow at first, now a disembowelment,

to find that no-one seems to know

about the wrench, the tearing inside,

fire gone from each step; so quieter,

these days, than he used to be.

 

And he’d sung, a lot,

and played guitar – not so well but

once it was fun; that now silent too.

He’d like to hear it played, made to sing,

made to make music; its case now a coffin,

he opens the lid, lifts it out and

bends his body round it, hugging

the dead in his dying arms.

 

He’s quieter now,

mostly because he’s learned

to listen to the winds and to

feel the sun on his body, come to

understand, accept, believe in a

voluntary peace, confirming each day he can

end the silence any time he likes and

walk in haunted woods and fields.