ELUSIVE
Peace falls like a leaf On a drifting stream The continuo drone of bees Underpins the pigeons murmuring In a tempo they only understand Unfinished intermittent cycles Without end or beginning While the chaffinch sings And the clock slows The metronome falls out of time No longer controls The heart-rate’s agenda Stubborn joints unfurl Warring voices meet and merge And quieten together In sudden self-knowledge Before such grace The anger that barks at the gates Is beyond earshot The heaviness of grievance Dispersed, like ashes Irrelevant on the wind All things seem possible As we listen to life breathing If the moment Could only be preserved Boxed in a treasure chest Transported To the future places of failure We will no doubt inhabit Opened, and released To be relived Or multiplied to infinity Conserved and wrapped Dropped by carrier pigeon On conflict zones Throughout the world Putting a halt to madness But embalmed It would grow rigid Shelved in a casket Gathering dust In someone else’s Thought museum The calm must pass We must return to disappointing noise The contradictions and addictions That tear the heart Soundbites telling us To what extent our earth is sick Through our own making And how some lives are just Unbearable beyond belief But peace fell The truth of that one moment Absorbed under the skin Becomes a subterranean stream That irrigates the soul’s resistance Across the desert Until the next oasis
Mud at the wall 