The Return to Cornwall

Life's eternal brush with death
The mind in stillness is lost to a dream
... if it is a dream

The crack in the woods
reverberating a distant thundering
growing nearer this ground
... they're coming once again

I feel the shackles now
as I did then

Pulled to some darker depth
within words
come in rapid succession
recounting all that is seen in his telling eyes
... his haunting presence

But he does not hear
I am reminded of his silent language once again
the words which come warm and gathering
penetrating and bright
drawn to his depths
his secrets revealed
I am a reluctant voyeur at his window

Truth begins to chain all that is false
... aspiring to be truth
so, to be forgiven

Cornwall was never so detailed
as it was on that day

Cornwall was never so cold
as it shook beneath my feet
... bare in tall grass

Knowing this ground in its last moments
knowing the cold and warm as one
knowing what it is to surrender
to what it is I cannot change

As the chain weighs heavier
somehow a greater strength is found

Do you not remember my language
or have you chosen not to hear

As final temporal grains strike the ground
... my soul
I am witnessing this departure once again

Come with me this time
I find myself nearer the edge
of an ending which is a beginning

Stand this ground
... this one ground

Break the chain crafted by uncertainty
and know this ground of love.

~ Leila Aster