Responsibilities
Imagining you on your own,
I’m vigilant.
You’ve heard me, I can tell.
A rustle in the kitchen leaves
Above your head, a semi-stifled click
Somewhere below, an errant chime
An hour or so into your sleeplessness:
Ghost tremors,
They don’t keep you company,
Not now, and they won’t bring me back,
Not this time. ‘Please
Leave me alone,’ I’ve heard you cry
And you have heard me rustle in reply,
Or click, or chime: ‘Don’t make me go.’
Dream Song
He called you ‘Master of beauty,
Craftsman of the snowflake’, your contrivances
Beyond compare, or competition.
He knew little of your character,
Your background, or your ‘motivation’
Famously mysterious and manifold.
Most nights it was enough
To seek to praise, imploringly,
Your work so far, your imminent
Deep-thirsting rose,
For instance, your now dead
And yet triumphant to remember
Daffodil, your giant tree almost afloat
Again outside his window,
Punctual and unthrifty in its green.
Great Lord,
Was it indeed your will
That he should thus so humanly
Heartsore pick up his pen and look the other way?
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