In The Halls Of The Kingmaker

I touch the rough stone walls,
feeling the room whisper with history.
The open fires cast medieval glows,
while wood smoke threads the tapestries.
Floorboards shiver underfoot,
groaning softly in their dotage
as visitors step gently
in the footsteps of kings.

Up and around
the spiral staircase,
just wide enough
to fit a climbing guest
whose hands
brush the walls
and wipe away
a brittle dust
of history.

I look at my fingers,
standing on the battlements,
the view all around
forgotten for a moment
because it is the now
and I have gathered the then.

Down and around
the spiral staircase,
back to the hall
where gradually
the fading light
has washed the colours
of the Kingmaker
into grey shrouds.

I am ahead of the guide
in a room on my own
looking at the bed
where a queen
is said
to have died.

Soft flutters
in my chest
and insects
crawl my arms
at soft words
in my ear.

“Who are you,
in your strange clothes,
and why do you shiver?”

The clamour of other souls
bustling in
to see the sights
and the welcome return of noise
to this sad room.

And I do not tell her,
when I feel the human touch
and she looks at me with concern

saying
“Are you OK,
it looks like you've seen a ghost”.

Because I am rational
and laugh at these things
when others say them.

But we are all human
and we all feel the past
in darkened halls,
in ancient stairwells,

in empty rooms…