soft edges erase us, cold cleans the wound, white grants a clean sheet.

a perpetual noon, becalmed by snow, a train sliding back before my birth, my fathers birth, my grandmothers birth.

you don't stand still either, everything in transit.

scant versions of myself arrive from the past to meet me on street corners. are they asking for a ransom, a room, are they pleased to see me? ,

45 degrees, arms to the sky's triangle, so still at the centre the lichen flowers.

do not count, as life encroaches, the distant ones are lost, the horizon is empty, mind your feet and hold the rail.

imagine the sun not coming, a terror that strips the soul.

hill top litany, high authority coded in bodies and places.

the crescent is hidden, the shadow is waiting, a circle is cut from the black night sky, and wells tears from upturned eyes.

where are you going river? the wind is riding your water into the future, beyond our confinement. your silver line a bookmark, a thread for lost craft.

can you give what is asked? are you placed to begin?