breathless at the threshold

no storm tonight

to clear the smothering pall

 

blankets weigh heavy

on failing lungs

 

I lay like a vitruvian

gulping at air

my soul is drowning

 

finding my feet

leaning heavy at the jamb

 

struggling to the stairs

and down

 

I’ve become

another old man

resenting his dying

 

‘not here... not now... alone... unloved...’

 

reeling the passage,

the kitchen,

stepping outside

sinking on the flagstone

wooden deckchair

 

the pre-dawn cool

of the garden -

its serenity -

is unnerving

 

sipping precious air

I gazed from potted herbs

past apple trees

to the purpling sky

 

my mind is clinging

to comforting

half-forgotten scriptures

once familiar

 

now tormenting me

fleeing, dissolving

in a morass

of fear-some doubts

and weeping

 

‘so this is how it ends –

extinguished

by a heartless plague’

 

small lights in scattered pots

transformed through

opaque teary eyes

to a welcome gathering

 

sweet friends long departed

unforgotten sharers

of love blood and memory

stood in salutation

meeting me

greeting me

 

I sent my love out to them

it echoed back to me

 

I spoke all their names

kissing, healing the pains

we all inflicted

 

no trace of grudge remained

 

I stroked their hair

squeezed their hands

 

we would dance -

if I could stand

 

come the colouring of dawn

announcing day

the lights turned back to lights

 

they were just lights