The bulk of water beneath the grey
Lights in the sky I see
They fade out from view
And only return
When the night pulls the tide.

Cascading down through sleepy thickets
A brush of rain peppers the air
On the dew-soaked stair.

I longed to shatter that haunting image
Of smoke rising beside a lonely road
On a hazy summer’s day long ago.

Talk is cheap and so are they
Fights down by the picnic benches
These threads...of memory
They float away
With the night.

Chains and barrels and heavy cloth
Pull me under
Whilst seven steps out in the moonlit surface
These reflections have blurred
In a blood-red morning.

Twigs snapped under poachers’ devices
Nets out when the body found
A cry for help
The shirts and axes grabbed and brought.

To suffuse a mystery is to pull an anchor
Up a hill steeped in shadow
But harm is due when the sun rises
The distant notions
Left far away at home.

Trails through glades thick, relic-strewn
Bringing up the same old answer
Trapping in vain, the wolves spring forth
Tearing memory from bone.

I planned to distance myself from this land
But I forgot the past long ago
Now it sleeps underneath
In an unmarked grave.