today
for a moment
my mother was here
she told me
we could go back
to the house we all lived in
years before
she knew I’d be glad
there was a shine in her eyes
as she told me
tomorrow
through the doors of dementia
she will have wandered again
leaving me here
I will know
where she’s gone
she will think I am there
with everyone gathered once more
it’s a comfort
to know she got home
but she has left me alone
i know that this house is waiting
i hear it in the room
i hear it the moment i enter
loud as the ocean breeze
it’s so thick i can almost touch it
but it’s only the sound of silence
emptiness in a sigh
gliding on absent feet
it makes the flames burn low in the grate
and the windows are empty eyes
i sit alone and gaze at the door
hoping that you will walk in
I went to the old house today. For you it was the last house.
I went down into the kitchen garden. It was a tangle, overgrown, and gone to weeds.
The pony shed was falling into ruin. You used to leave your muddied boots out there. They were gone of course.
The pear and apple trees still bare fruit.
The plums look especially good this year.
The rooks still nested in the poplar trees.
I went back in, to the kitchen and the remembered scent of lavender and yeast.
Our big table was gone. Everything was gone. All changed. Modernised beyond repair.
I didn’t venture on the attics stair.
That would have been too much for even me to bear.
Too dark. Too old. Too empty.
No laughter echoed anywhere. Only in my memory.
Old songs. Piano keys. The paintings missing from the hall.
I thought 0f Rumpelstiltskin and naive Goldilocks.
Your versions were so good. Funny and irreverent.
Clouds still passed the window where you told those tales.
The trees still moved in the wind, their branches bouncing up and down.
My life has wandered on. I don’t have the money to buy a house like this.
I sometimes wonder if I might return here on my last breath.
Today I was an intruder for a while.
I left through the side door beside the servants’ stairs.
No-one saw me. No-one cares.
I won’t go again there,
except at night, in dreams.
the dark is full of shining stars
the moon will fade tomorrow
the morning sun is coming up
these things are sure as turning fate
but i can only sit and wait
the night will surely follow
the house is there but we are not
no fire burns within the grate
now the hour is growing late
home and my heart are hollow
no matter how the birds may sing
I sit here full of sorrow
when the power went out we were ready
the oil lamps were always filled
the white candles stood in their holders
all was warmth and comfort
we gathered more brushwood and bracken
kindled the fire, make it crackle,
piling on logs and driftwood
we had dried in the yard in the summer
the kettle was boiling,
bread steadily rising,
as we sat near the wood stove,
silently gazing, drifting in dreams,
telling stories and fantasies
hot baths in steam and candlelight
snuggling under thick blankets
while the wind rattled the roof tiles
making a flute of the drainpipes
life went on unchanging, undaunted
when the power came back
we flicked a switch and turned on the radio
the world stepped back into the house
bringing nothing of value
tonight in another time and place
i live in another era, with no power
the house instantly grows colder
i wander about with a battery torch
in rooms full of shadows
i missed you more
than the woodsmoke and firelight
and any old luxuries of survival
but none of it matters now
Secret rooms, hidden behind walls,
books, red cushions and a chair,
visited in dreams, well known.
Narrowed passageways and stairs
climb above the twisted chimney stacks.
They rise like curling smoke, a spiral.
Doors that open inward lead out to
the dove cote, fountain, walls of mossy stone,
pathways, apple trees and pears.
At last I leave this house.
Beyond the gate
the island, slate and jagged rocks,
a swaying broken bridge in sighing wind,
a fragile home of glass and salted timber.
High tides beat against it, retreating in a spray.
A window cracks. I am not afraid.
The lighthouse calls out through the fog,
receding echoes that return again,
a sound that swings around the bay.
In dreams, when I am swept away,
the waiting house remains.
The Dreaming Path 