Caravan

New born moments flounder into one another
like revolving doors

and you know
the days you knew
are no more.

Time has ended
and begun from its own ashes
again

the walls are different now,
the breeze speaks a different tongue
and the land has a new face

but
memory is defined
by the places it never visited.

The world gets stranger as you go
oceans rise taller and skies plumb deeper,
names become things and things become names,
and memory teaches you to forget.

You shall wait on the wind and its numberless eyes,
decipher the secret music of the stone
slip into the cracks of the watery glass of the river
and soar with invisible wings over sandy shores,

for
long after you’ve died with the sun,
cried with the feathers,
sung with the waves,
and lived with the stars,

when the wisdom you’ve gleaned
suddenly seems useless
and the endless truth no longer seems endless
and you realise
life’s stories are narrated in sand and water,
you shall return
to the impossible patience of home

like a crumpled old postcard
that has known strange lands
yet retains the soul of the picture that is
burnt into its slender heart.

[4:57 pm | 11th July, 2009]