So then, stick by stick tonight we tear off strip after strip the newest feathers first then the older twigs and vines with each one my heart drops until there’s nothing left and nowhere lower empty branches where our sweet home once was
Inch by inch we pack and divide the moss all the soft things we’ve collected years of careful, loving selection pecking them away, each and every one my heart stops as we place them in our beaks to separate forever over an unknown distance a meaningless assortment of what once was our sweet home
Doing what we know we must we both say it’s for the best the home we had just turns to dust pull apart the perfect nest
You fly south I stay north and never again will our sweet home be here…
I lit a fire on the beach you were feeling beaten by the wind no, we can’t hear anything in this weather but the waves and the crackling wood you don’t speak anyway we have nothing we care to say
Our human silences amid nature’s screams fill me with a loss so unforgettable Our human silences amid nature’s screams fill me with a void so inescapable
The sky goes dark and the sea slides away time is huge and our movements tiny I wrote my address on the back of your hand but you reached into the water and it vanished I can’t imagine a life not anchored here as you turn slow to dive from me
The answers come only with soft punches a milked stone, I lie folded and bruised how could we ever know this lost romance your whirlpool eyes cry tears of understanding I dust the sand from my baked face and frown there’s no warning of love’s swift decay
Our human silences amid nature’s screams fill me with an ache so all consuming
Moon reveals the night’s black heart you say you love me, as you leave me you say you care for me, as you go down on him there’s no favour you can grant me anymore there’s no connection to the blood in my heart just open your palms, expose our withered bonds
The rain rages fast and hard across the sand we tussle as broken wings on some sick bird finality comes to me, its decision absolute your hand slips away and swings clear for all time I fall back into the water, exhaling slowly ‘Our home cannot be here…’
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Senses softened in the dark afternoon This year is charring in the fire grate So, I pour out into the haunted fields looking for loneliness, for lines, for clues to get a handle on all that’s happened to make predictions on where I am headed
All around my body, the world’s covered by a sheet life’s decorator is preparing to paint the new year This land spills on for snowy miles my past reels out somewhere behind me in those paths taken, in those choices made; there are glimpses of the shape of my future
The Grecian islands, the Cornish coast Those petty milestones, those brave goodbyes from swollen ankles, to exploded minds Portuguese walled-towns, to Derbyshire hills From a decade planted, then uprooted and moved the letting go, the keeping a hold Surprises; surprising, plans made and fulfilled much falls away, much more presents itself weddings, worries, work; with friends consciousness glides across the ghostly fields comes to rest behind my smiling eyes
So, now I have the things I’ve always wanted the peace I chased, the love I imagined the tools I’ll need are all within me and Kate is waiting, with her key, somewhere
By the gate, I pause, look up into the nothing time stands still, my eyes adjust… the pitch black night is full of stars (when did I last see those?) My gaze breaks, my footsteps in the powder flow time moves, I need for nothing else… I go back into the house
Toss my wondering on the fire pour a drink, talk to my family I’m satisfied and warm…
This aimless wander has me homesick my family haunts me Around the table; spirits chat and eat it’s been much too long since I heard those voices saw the smile in my father’s warm eyes somersaulted in my mother’s complete understanding laughed and gasped at the speed of my sisters’ lightning wit
There is a peace there in the disorder of my family I’m at home there in the disorder of my family
These years, I have spun far away but still we each hold so tightly my return feels as though I’d never left here That easiness and warmth retained So, to bathe in my father’s wisdom or breathe in my mother’s open heart to relax with my sisters’ friendly tales as they look to me with such respect
There is an unending bond there in the disorder of my family there is always a home for me in the disorder of my family
This aimless wander finds me wanting to return, to see my family to go back, to see my family so, I go home…
The Lighthouse 