Leaving Taichung Station

 

The voice of two pipes songing

the sky this morning is grey and arched, autumn’s racoon ghost all bushy-tailed

and rancorous 

what throws shadows on our hearts, the owl’s wing at night, the sudden tree cracking in the wind

the hum as leaves fall through mud on the heath

the hung kites in the trees fracture, fickle in the earth and mind

another story buried with spanner and flower

another name lost to the pebble, still

you go on

a pause as every word washed off in the bath falls at your feet

and you pick up the hair matted off the floor

tell me then reader, how shall this too end

with a word or time stuck in a ditch, the ice cubes quaking in a glass

the inevitable purge

have you memorized the wind on the way to the grave you could not find

for: the writer Marc Nash