The School Mistress

She hides behind walls of hollow words,

clay words baked by burning hopes.

Words moulded from mud and straw

surround her dust drenched days

as desert dunes drift the passing years.

No bells ring from these ramparts,

no wisdom wrung from these  words,

no new life flung to find the heavens.

The silence of expanding stars listens, learns.

Dartsharp drawn from  the dry womb sting,

arrows from a quiver of bone, shatter

the shimmering mirage outside her space,

shards slice the tenderness of dreams

inked on deskwood, carved on oaks.