Tag: memories

What if Infinite Night Existed Within You?

What if infinite night existed within you?
Your mechanical dance with the physical world
simply a dream – deathless eyes that drink it all in.

What if, when your fingers fumble with that envelope,
You find that it splits open to reveal
all of the best memories you ever had, whole again;

What if, when I reach out to touch your hand, stories
Tumble out, yours and mine, aching to be told.

What if we could all see each other like this, soul-naked, behind
the masks and pain and songs of separation.

I hold you and you stroke my face as though seeing me for the first time.

Your eyes speak of a thousand things;
that time you lived on a boat, clambered up masts,
sea-spray glistening on your forearms,
long black hair whipped into a frenzy of storms

(This is how I’ll remember you –
bodies are just temporary shells after all
and you’re bigger than that –
you’re the wind and the sea and the lighthouse, ship and Siren;
the infinite All.)

What if infinite night existed within you, endless stars and dear-held dreams?
You smile but there is fear in your eyes and I have no words to take it away.

© 2015. Sarah Horne. All Rights Reserved.

On memory (for Marian)

In the low hum of night
silences overlapping
I listen carefully for husks of memory
see if I can fit them together
like a puzzle

Autumn is here and
I am as a hollowed, marionette
I spin myself a fat cocoon
from the photographs
on my table
Fashion a home for me to live another night

(Perhaps all we truly have is silence,
and the small things that light
our attention
like fireflies)

Autumn is here and
I wish I could say to you that it’s all OK
but the truth is everything fades, becomes sepia

Oh, this old woman sitting here isn’t me
she’s not the girl who went travelling on her own
–long before it was fashionable!–
spoke six languages, fell in love.
I place the photograph back on the table
I’ve sewn you into my mind for another night

Tonight, I can still utter your name.
And I say it over and over again.
Over, and over.

© 2011. Sarah Horne. All Rights Reserved.