Your Soul One Autumn Afternoon

I watched the dog as she watched you,

Watched your soul rise up and float across the autumn afternoon.

She tracked it to the door which opened just a crack,

And then she sighed, harrumphed and settled down to doze,

Aware perhaps that you’d return, quite soon, 

While all the while your body lay in some repose,

Not twitching, eyes relaxed, not rolled back.

I wish I knew the basic things dogs know

And had the confidence to feel when all is well,

Happy to observe and to keep track,

Accept that certain things are merely so.

 

A Queue

 

They waited, sadly, hour after hour,

Doing that quintessential British thing,

Putting up, in line, though tired, hungry,

Never really grumbling,

What were aching legs, stomachs rumbling,

Why give voice when greater forces curb the silly tongue,

And silence is the order of the day?

What use are words, when eyes say all there is to say?

What was drizzle, wind that blew a little cold?

When there was History, both noun and verb,

Before that place sophrosyne so lately manifested,

And there was awe that fit it’s place of old.

Milton’s final line from ‘On his blindness’

Never seemed so apt,

As rapt, they gazed with loving kindness,

To see, ironically, at rest,

An embodiment of that which he detested,

Yet changed now:

Power without power.