Imagine Lights to the Rescue

Sole guide and friend when I am
lost on country lanes. It’s night
and the loss is sometimes straightforward,
sometimes
the strands of complication get plaited in
colouring warmth in where none was scheduled.
I imagine torches on scenes of small disasters.

Someone we love is always the shape of the missing
the gap unfilled
a careful step on the cracks in the pavement –
it never hurt anyone
to be doubly sure but
who’s to say superstition hasn’t cursed the world?

There can’t be one heart for hatred
and one for love. We only have one…
and it stains easily.

Then and Now

Before, you were the enemy,

much loathed,

feared for remaining elusive,

hanging aloof,

evading and retreating,

after your initial brief attack.

I hunted you in dense jungles,

while you burrowed in deserts dry.

In leafy canopies I screwed up my eyes to seek you,

while you slithered underground.

Mocking my paltry attempts to spear you,

you strung me up

and snuck away.

But now I’ve some to see you

as an ally or a guide.

Drunk on your beauty,

I follow wheresoever you might lead.

Brief glimpses keep me in love,

alluring, bewitching,

I know the pleasure of succumbing.

We could almost be friends.