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Detached
A dry track runs through pines along the shore.
The roots seem to grip on to sand.
A lighthouse
wipes the sky and washes
the moon’s cracked face: tonight its beams
pick
out no coloured horsemen. Life is change,
and change is like a line of little deaths
whispering
as the wind high in these trees
Life
cannot be lived except in dying.
In
a season such as this
the soul may shrink and dry like leather
becoming
a hard, small ball,
something to be thrown and hit
beyond
who-knows-what boundary
if not caught in love’s firm glove.
This
poem was originally titled Gironde,
after the region in France in which it was written.
© Godfrey Rust 1997, godfrey@wordsout.co.uk. See here for permissions.
.