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o you still remember how we
used to read together? --

when I was in you,
I was in the very word of you,
I was not the reflection
in your eyes, but in its very pupil
that read the very word of me, too;

and are we still what love
had written of us? --

though how could we have known
what we were creating
from this dark armchair
of an uncertain mind;
to which the heart
could give no certainty;

a fool to be frightened
of a reader that read
so closely, as we spoke
the Word that made us be;

and changed the smallest of things
from daily living into
the most newest things to do;
like eating, or talking --

and how I told you reading
was like walking
on freedom road;

such things
increasing in the sharing;

but now, what is eating?
what is reading when
I'm grieving for you.

-- and from this dark armchair
I look out the window,
to swarms of golden leaves
at the edge of a forest
where the Sun dips low;

-- but I'm outdone by the irony;
back on freedom road alone,
and I have nowhere to go;

-- night flares up the horizon,
the Book is shut,
the Word even more so;
the naked letters now shaded
from my ink and my pen,
I write no more, and
my reading is done:
but wait from my dark armchair,
for the light of the Sun;

for birdsong to traverse
over flora and sea,
to come back to the verse
of freedom road
and to sing to me.

Published 3 January, 2011

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