Sitting quietly

Sitting quietly

At the back of a room

In a chair or a pew

A church or a pub

When they can be one and the same

Depending on the circumstance,

Where people sing

Or chatter endlessly about the weather,

Under the shade of an umbrella

Or with the sun blazing down

On a pastoral scene.

Pasty white feet

Dangling in a fast-flowing stream

Varicose veins

Of icy cold water

Crystal cut

Remembering other times

As an unwinding of mortality

When just for a moment

The movement of the world

Ceases to be of value,

Something and nothing.

All the dreams you ever had

Swim around in your head

Looking for an excuse

To escape

As broken bits and pieces

Of yesterday threaten

To implode into today.

Questions of survival

Can sometimes appear insurmountable,

Everest without oxygen

The smallest movement

An impossible task,

Dirty glasses

Covered in fingerprints

Suggest we are all culprits

In this story,

Meanwhile amber liquid glows

In the light of the sun

Caught in a tumble of forgetting

When everything becomes insignificant

Volume contracts

Into itself

And the next breath,

Pregnant with possibility

Becomes the only thing

Worth waiting for.