Let's keep the light we're given

When our stores of words are fled

Empty as a musical box 

Or a box for housing the dead;

When the bridge between giving and taking

Has crumpled in the dust-prints of mouse.

A Wee, sleekit, cow'rin, tim'rous beastie.

Then all of our days are a struggle: to walk

And to dream and to think; when the gates of the new

Jerusalem appear blinking on the brink.

Will you follow my heart through this lingering death

With colours and music and words?

Will the feel of the will-o'-the-wisp on skin

Cause blackouts and atonal tears??

Help me to know the glimmering-ghost-light

As a feeling that stutters along....

As it flits from the merest echo of pitch

Into a fully-fledged minor chord song.

Images gleaned from memory

Flutter with those plucked today

As I gaze into fire

Flames leaping away:

Still watches of the night

Houses become silent,  

Time passes by,

We tumble

Into sprinkling gyres

Of light in the northern sky.