I tread these ancient time-worn tracks
memorials to the syntax of this land
to probe the molten silence of this place
and sense its pulse-beat in the air
the call of man’s ancestral dreams
haunts the shelter of these stones
while shriveled leaves from borrowed skies
fall beneath the voids of emptiness.
I walk the darkened alleys
of this place called loneliness
through stabbed realities
of once sacred dreams
breathing sounds of sorrow
in this lot of time
not the passage of years
nor death can hush this place.
I sit in this shadowed garden
a body scattered in wounded fragments
singing canticles of mourning
in cemeteries of evening twilights
my path marked by fear
in frozen wastelands of desire
I seek to find a reason
for man’s self-inflicted death.
I kneel and touch this holy earth
to feel its fertile throbbing force
chant a muted sacred prayer
that the spirits of this place
may once again attain
their long-lost custody of this land
recall the ancient rites of old
in a stillness of all sound removed.
I stand timeless
in calendared reference of yesterdays
and will a potent sleep
my dreaming spirit turns
wraps a silver mantle round my world
lights up the eclipse of this life
dreamscapes in landscapes
from somewhere back in time.
I trace this temple’s winding paths
coiled in web-like spiral shapes
while echo-messages from these stones
see me through the darkness of these years
work the colours of my life
carve alchemies in my changing bones
and guide me through the walls of time
where death exists no more.