I

and I alone

upon my bed of cobbled stone

Ponder

   As my flesh weeps into gravel sheets

I ponder what it must be like

to be whole again

   To feel I had a soul again

This dessicated shell

crumbles like mountain scree

down, down to the hungry, black sea

lapping and licking at the feet of my bed

dragging out, with the tide, 

such meagre light from my head

   The world outside crumbles too!

No visits again today

Some cough-maker

(put you in ye coffin maker!)

is laying siege to the world

    Or, laying seeds for the world?

To enlighten 

and grow

like beautiful, waking flowers yawning glistening dew 

from tongues of evocative petals

 

The seeds of the mind re-sown for brighter blooms?

 

   My own mind, now, slumbers to a comforting warmth

And, it is the walls of my confinement that crumble - not I

   A sudden tingle of breeze prickles my parchment skin

as the youthful hand of my, much lamented, wife 

glides, like silk, into mine

As warm and radiant as a summer dawn 

And, together, we stroll back                      to our sunshine days 

Through fields imbued with honey-glaze 

 

End.