The Stage

This is a place of actors
Exploring their roles;
It is a theatre where
Memory is dust:
Whatever the spotlight
Chooses to throw upon.

Her stage is that world
Between light and dark,
Where the blur cuts across
Her face; and, trying to
Connect, you venture into that
Half-way state – wading in the
Mist.

Come back to the light.

And so we become
Passengers on her train,
Chugging to a coast,
Accepting that the
Vermillion wall sign
Tells us our travelling speed –
We are not going fast.

One wouldn’t want to spend
One’s life waiting at a station –
It would get terribly dull.

Immersed in the scene
We serve up verbal images
Like hot ribenas
Or photos on a mantlepiece.

Many are lost to the fog
But a few resonate her face
Like rays of dawn.
Madrid and Ireland still stand there
Like dust, and I can feel the warmth
And rain.