Top Of That Hill

Giuseppe Penone’s

Alberto Folgorato

(Lightning struck tree)

Could be the very metaphor

Amplified by the dark clouds of Yorkshire

Highlighted by the sky's silver linings

The split trunk

Says much about divergence

The gold-leaf offshoot

Itself splits in two

Their fine points

Reaching ever upward

Yet it is the dark bark

A combination of browns, silver-greys

With slivers of gold

Which looks strongest, which reaches highest

What we leave behind

May grow ever brighter

But in no way, no way whatsoever

Did it stunt our growth

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Oh Henry

I did not expect to find such peace

Or for your presence to be so strong

Sometimes, I now know

That you just have to wait

Of course sunshine

And blue skies always helps

How long was the creation of this work

How long will take its deconstruction

Such a perfect setting

What better use for a Chapel

Of course sunshine

With blue skies, always helps

I take a second photograph

To remind me of the absence

I notice not only are mother and child missing

But also the Mother and Child is missing too

Of course sunshine

With blue skies, always helps

I could not rightly expect silence

In the busy, mid-summer coffee shop

Anyway why would I want that, for surely

Joyful laughter are what I wish to be reminded of

Of course sunshine

With blue skies, always helps

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Pond

I have found a quiet place

I have taken a photograph

Of your absence

Yesterday I found photographs

Days 2 to 3 on the canal boat

You looked swell, smiling

The moorhen

Appears to walk on water

As it skips across the lotus leaves

That you were happy

Is what struck me; somehow

We had touched the miracle of life

Now the moorhen’s sibling

Leads her away from the water

To the calm of the terra-firma

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Residual

That love of no longer love

That love of pure escapism

The schism of disappearance

The insincere smitten life of sense

Intensity rises, intensity calls

Opportunity prises, immense in the falls

Soul and spirit: a deep and wilful critic

The cyclic nature of abandonment calls

Succession, procession, obsession

Fresh from the morning nap

Correction, inflection, dictation

Until the next time of passion

The fashion is as the fashion is

No longer is the fashion as the fashion was

Was that, what we did not talk about

That one day we too would grow old

Yet the cold caught hold before our time

Your bold move brought the curtain down

The certainty of your management

Sent out shock waves, which never settled

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Inside

When I close this page

May the conversations continue

Between what maybe never was

And what maybe was never meant to be

Might that they should explore

How close, or how far

Their emotions floated, drifted

In search of a stable mooring

That they could open the faces

Of the pebbles, the stones, the oceans

Such that they could hear the music

Of a love line leaning, all pervading

Might that they ask one another

Also ask of themselves

Was there any further that we could have gone

Was there any nearer which we could have been

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