Before we knew
what we know today
and spoke so freely of it,
there were kitchens
with wood stoves
where the air lay still
on pale afternoons
and men like my uncle
sat in old chairs
that creaked with time
and smoked pipes
that were packed
in a certain way with
tobaccos no longer
made or remembered.
And it was winter,
or one of those
settled seasons,
when new eyes
beheld old ceremonies
of murmured small talk,
beneath clocks imbued
with permanent patience,
- and light crept
in collaborative shafts
across the dwindling of the day.
I remember matches
flaring in the silence,
flames like honey
to the leaf, and vapours
sifting in supine dreams,
- and men who were wise
and unadorned
and did not fear quiet
or the hour they might die.
© 2010
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