Wearing his pain draped down
the side of his face,
he could no longer set his jaw,
as if the internal law of gravity
overcame the stoic place
he had forged in the universe.

Sight, no sound between us
he lay betrayed by age and body too.

I was there in my mind,
and he in mine,
the only place allowed
by silent
ancient
ways of saints and sailors.

My hands,
their grip no good
sought solace in the wood
and knives of older waiting times.

A stroke,
and then a curl,
a wisp of wood
removed from ‘round the
subject in the grain,
an unknown feature
in a figure that it could be,
a bear of wood,
and me.

09/05/2006

Posted on 09/06/2006
Copyright © 2025 Timothy Somers