The Unseen

Walk down the shadowy lane, drink in autumn’s dreaming.

Listen to the Lonesome call, calling from behind their wall,

from under vague stones among bare bones. Tarnished as all

silver resting in damp, black soil: asleep, forgotten, gleaming.



Because sometimes on chimes that clang sad all day,

the Famished tap out their strange five-toned tune.

They whistle through my room all afternoon

passing through sunrays like light green through grey.



They’ve nowhere to be, no safe road to follow neatly.

Theirs is but to glide and stand, wait by the shores

for the never-coming boat with no name that sweetly

blows for them from far-gone times and loves or sores.



You may see them one day putting on the play of their Lives

or Deaths: how it all happened, who they might have been.

Usually in the hall floating silent with a silent grin

then whispering out and up to mingle among murmuring leaves.