Just Asking

Why would I assist

If to assist

Is to be argumentative

Why would I lend a hand

If to lend a hand

Is to have the rug pulled out

From beneath one's feet

Time Takes Time

It is July

Not a million miles

From midsummer

Yet the first

Autumnal orange brown leaf

Has appeared on the blossom tree

Time, as they say

Marches on

Today, a day after

This July day

We are on local radio

In support of humanist weddings

I will wait for the quietness

Stay home, alone

With room to roam

Through my mind

Abroad with feelings

Of love and its emotions

In that peace

I might imagine

The leaf in transition

From olive green

Through plum red

To orange brown

Trotternish

I am urged to write

Not knowing

Where the spring rises

Or where the river flows

But there is celebration

The day has gone

Beyond its darkness

Clear light has made an entrance

Books, photographs; framed

To bring a thought

To gift a memory

To recast a pain

How good it is to feel good

To drive beside the loch

On the way to a place

Whose name I can’t remember

Flodigarry, that’s it

I just needed a few moments

Of pure concentration

Then to look out to the island

Black Dog

It is a place that I left

I have left a lot of places

It is a place that I return to

I return to a lot of places

It was a time when I walked away

I have walked away too too often

It was a time which passed me by

I did pass time by too too often

My memory occasionally reminds me

My memory equally often forgets

My heart and soul remind me

My heart and soul less often forgets

It wasn’t a great start

But it did get better

I was not in a good mood

But the mood it got better

I was under the black cloud

But the black cloud lifted

I was feeling sorry for myself

But the pastiche of miasma slowly lifted

I berate myself unduly

Before I feel the lightness

I criticise myself without reason

Before I am redeemed by the lightness

Noise, Is That All

Is it the things

That we do do

Which bring us together

Is it the things

That we don’t do

Which force us apart

Does love

Draw us

Together

Does love

Push us

Apart

If I have any certainty

It is

In the uncertainty of it all

If I have any doubt

It is

In the without doubt of it all

Will my ears still ring

In my headphones

Tomorrow morning

Will the constant

Phut, phut, phut

Take me through the night