Memoirs of a Life Unlived

Who claps and jigs and revels As the flames consume the barn? Who hacks the thickest forest And gets lost amid the stumps?   Who sees the lady all the way And taps the three of clubs? Who waits until the train arrives To cross the track for luck?

The pasture rolls a little, sweet and plain, perhaps a little boring. Herding cows ignore you. You unfold the map again: that blood still cakes the mouldboard of the plough. The Brabants' fusty sweat-steam in your eyes, you squint and hear the fragile thrum of cars along the A19, a crow describes a perfect arc. A burst of sunlight mars the clearest view you had of slender smoke. You stop mid-field, removed of shade and hope.

Time ’ s gravity drags. Try resisting. Look up at things appearing as real as any moving thing can be - defy their death. Rooms change when eyes shed tears; what if they welled, burst open windows, smashed down doors? I'd race upstream to breaking points and fix things. We hold on as we must, keep things that have occurred - things that followed all the rules; we know they only did what was allowed - like corpses, shaking them to kid ourselves they stirred, mapping them to re-engage the flow.