Chimerical
the falling year
There is a house by the sea
older than anything I have ever known, the waves
pull at its foundations; yet it stands
and crumbles stones, year by year, into the water
like an old woman feeding birds.
The corridors are dim and grey
the sun never quite shines, the clouds may break
to close again, and rain falls on the shore
which stretches out before me, miles on miles
of brown and grey and white and shadow.
Fires burn in black grates, the walls inside are blue
papered with strange prints that shift and change
as I sit, becoming something else, a monster or an angel
or some wild hunt, the sort dreamt of
that tears screaming past on windy nights
takes breath from the hearer (leaves the heart a drum),
silent and rigid, as the terrors of the night make one
in bed, till the warmth rubs up against your feet,
yawns thoughtfully, and quietly falls asleep.
And if year by year the walls still crumble
and fall into the water, if the house
in time rejoins the tide it now denies
fires extinguished in pursuit of love
I will be gone, and the house with its stones
will be left to drift in a colder sea.