The first thing I saw as I walked into the kitchen
was the crust covered with fungi.
All shades of grey, blue and yellow.   

He slept in the room below that was once the parlour.
I wanted to walk through
but my feet wouldn’t move  

I knew he was dead of course, died in his drink induced sleep.
He’d be happy to be gone.
Life was a burden to him.   

I couldn’t take my gaze from the crust.
I wanted to reach out and touch it.
I felt it was the only thing left alive
In this house of the dead.

At times, like between summer and winter,
waking and sleeping,
day and night,
or night and day.
Somewhere between the known and unknown
a crack appears,
a curtain lifts,
or an eye opens into another world,
and we are with the living who are dead
and the dead who still exist in a place we’ve never known.

By ourselves but not alone,
we hear the love never spoken,
feel the heart forever broken,
we know the battle never won,
hear the song as yet unsung,
see the road that wasn’t taken
know the dream that was forsaken.  

Where life flows on,
nothing’s lost and no one’s gone.

No wonder the ancients worshipped the sun,
they called them pagans.
Now the multitudes worship bits of paper that promise power and
deliver soulessness.

Those who gather lots of paper are the heroes, those who share them are
the Christians.
As if it matter, they’re worthless anyway.  

Let me be a pagan then,
a sun worshipper whose heart is warmed
and whose soul is filled with wonder,
whist gazing at the creation,
not understood by ancient man
and still not understood by me.

Before Winter came
and the darkness descended,
we gathered the wild fruits of the forest.

 I could hear the birdsong clearly,
as the river hummed along,
like the drones of the uilleann pipes.

And I saw creation as it should be seen,
while the young lovers lost in each other,
strolled through the forest
awaiting the coming of Spring.