20 Nov 2007

Rose

I am wearing the rose perfume you love
though you are elsewhere, gone...
And the spots you sat in around this one
now ache; an imploding pain,
like those flowers who arrive in summer's wake
to see they are alone.

The ticking clock is louder now, it is grave,
counting harder shouting "Attention!"
To both fill and count down the timed void,
to spread the presence of silence
in all the empty spaces,
spaces yearning for the bustle they once framed,
and the sound it made.

Around the sky: a lank, grey and foggy mind.
It has forgotten all and sees nothing.
No birds, no light, no breath
only cement on cement, chimneys dead and portici unkempt.
The only thing that moves is a pulse,
a pulse of oil on rising from my neck,
consistently filling the damp air
reviving the colours of tomorrow
filling the senses with that which,
though forgotten,
was always there.