Matins’ Bell

‘I’m tired now’, he said, by light of darkness,

mumbled into night his waking thoughts,

a plaintive sort of fatigued exaltation,

no defeat but crushed by earthly knocks.

A glimmer in the darkness listened keenly,

spluttered into life to ease his pain,

descended on his forehead as he struggled

pasting joys in desiccated pains.

In dreams he saw a dancer up above him,

then dancing on the parquet floor of hairless pate

and, in the gentle tapping of her footsteps,

he traversed back in time through all life’s gates.

To childhood days that merged with church’s bell ring

and infant hands so soft within his grasp,

sunshine holidays and harder times when

they’d pulled in belts and wondered if, perhaps,

the work and want, the endless, restless passage,

fraught with cares and doing all he could

were worth the love of all that gathered round him.

He sighed in sleep and smiled at all the good.

The dancer danced and then lay flat upon him,

impressed herself, as light, into his mind,

bestowed the recollected visions of his voyage

and whispered tunes he’d carried deep inside.

His breathing eased and slowed to mellow movements,

shallow sighs belied the deeper well,

exchange of life, the price became apparent,

sleep on in peace or ring aged matins bell.

Light maintained its presence in his mindset,

centred on his soul when he awoke,

he smiled at love that lay asleep beside him

and whispered thanks to angels when they spoke.