Sixty

(Carelessly titled piece about time passages).

Are you my guardian demon
or I, your Noah’s dove?
Memories find their way back through the mist,
like the blind ferryman, who knows the tides
and the perilous reef.
They eventually arrive, blown around my legs,
like yesterday’s abandoned newspaper.
Their sharp words bend my ears,
but with the ambivalence of the vine
I shrug them off.
They cannot harm me
I have been standing here too long.
Secretly I seethe, and for a moment you recoil
before goading me with your lion tamer’s chair and whip.
Then your lovely head is placed between my chastised jaws,
and all around the leaves fall beyond the point of no return,
from proud green to embarrassed humble bronze.

© Graham Sherwood 10/2011