Shire Lights

Shire Lights

Reflected in the water,
the forest lights fall, drowned
Draped throughout the flora,
refracted are the sounds

Grooves in groves stream ardent,
under twilight's vale, danced
in a glade in midnight's garden,
with a glimpse of futures glanced

Shimmering in ripples,
simmering beneath,
A surface still, that stipples,
speckled pasts spent in the reef

Settled on the lake bed,
amidst a shale shore
Braille memoirs gather, raised... read,
avid memories and more

Lost days remembered learning,
placed firmly in the past
A love I wasn't earning,
yet held it to the last

Amidst a sea of scotch eggs,
and cast out gummy bears,
nights spent beyond the last legs
… and broken toes on stairs

A fox so sly, she turned out,
her voice still haunts these halls
A light so bright it burnt out
and still, I sense her calls

In nights 'neath arid canvas,
amidst a sea of tents
Moments that should mean less,
meaning more than they were meant

'midst cookies left on keyboards
and foreign tongues en route,
Decorated, so they mean more,
muted journeys rendered moot

An enigma, she is to me
We work with what we know
The wind it blows right through me,
… it's nowhere else to go

and so I amble on until
I've rambled, true to form
Racing raindrops up the hill,
to shelter from the storm

A space where all the pain goes,
with a pot of gold at stake
A lifetime chasing rainbows,
for the lady of the lake

with Excalibur left hidden,
submerged or sheathed in stone
Lodged in reefs, unbidden,
a King for now, alone

with future flights in surplus
and pasts long sailed, gone
Muted 'neath the surface
… the shire's lights shine on