Voice of the Angel
I shall and always
watch over you.
With gently folded hands
and peaceful eyes.
My heart spills over with love.
I revel in happy excess,
Your shadow is my form.
Compassion warms my blood
and I see all.
I know your heart.
Your thoughts are mine.
Your hopes and fears
find their way to me.
Your guilt is also known and
the sum of every aspiration
hoped for or dreamt.
In the end, you will come to me.
I shall welcome you for ever
With open arms and
shining wings of pearl.
In a Frozen Place.
Winter passed cheerlessly.
Each hour a stone
that weighted their backs.
Each day the snow and hail
raked their cheeks.
They withdrew.
Sliding deep into their veins.
Curling into their hearts.
Heads heavy with the heft of darkness
Caused their eyes to close
And they clung to the red warmth
inside their mouths.
It was a time of attrition.
As nature attempted to scour
all signs of life from the face of the earth.
To splinter it into crystals
That whirled in the winds howling.
The people grew spines of ice.
Drew the blood up from their feet
Even as they purpled with cold.
They worked and slept.
Huddled like field mice
around the precious flame and in the spring
when the ice began to crack
and a little blue smeared the sky.
They raised their faces
And knew that they had won.
Broken.
(The Girl in the Care Home Garden)
The song could be heard across the garden.
Wafting through speckled Laurels.
Floating above cerise Rhododendrons.
always the same.
“Shine on Harvest Moon.” Incongruous words
carried on a voice drenched in melancholy.
The girl sang every day but only in solitude
Hidden by foliage. Enclosed by shrubbery.
I found her once. She would not speak.
Her eyes were splintered crystals, unfocussed,
Bleak. Her understanding fragmented. She moved on
into oblivion. Her mind scarred and broken.
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