The Light Was Always You (rev)

In the beginning there was light,
abundant light that truly lit the way,
time was never lost in dodging flights
of feckless shadows, darkness seldom
ever blight the brightness of our day.

And when the shadows came at night
and stretched into a weary dawn, tangled
in the sleepers’ eyes, yawning in their
tousled hair, barely then we were aware.

That was when we dwelt in dismal shades
of grey, remembered flawless summers’ days
we left behind in broken time, dismembering
a quintessence of things that bound us
thence – held us tightly on our way.

Now we stumble in the dark, walk a sorely
riven path that’s strewn with rubbled past,
strive to find our perfect light, aghast a gloom
compounds our plight and treats us to affray;
could we find our flawless day within this
darkened room, or find the kindly light we
seek whilst stepping in each other’s way?

The bruises which we bear from crashes
in the night are sorely worn, we’re torn by
crazy flights of fantasy despite the anchors
of our past, deluged by vast illusions with
no caste or frame to give a name to;

I know it’s not a game and I despair at my
lost sight, I see a worldly light that glows
within the warmth of you, a light to guide
you true, a light to surely show you where to go;
and where you go is where I need to be
because I’m blind, did not construe,
the source of light was always you.
© 1 February 2004, I.D. Carswell

Without you I am blind….

I Love You In The Morning (rev)

I love you in the morning and in setting of the sun
in aching hours of darkness before the day's begun
and in a waking solitude to greet the breaking dawn
I grant you sleep an extra hour although you sleep alone.

I love you in the evening and on into the night
I love you and I need you despite our torrid plight;
this battle is anomalous, tensioned in despair –
perhaps a tender measuring of just how much we care.

If loving you were bars of gold we’d both be millionaires,
but love is gold enough for me and money my despair;
I wish your life be full of joy, of triumphs and acclaim,
when all the tumult quietens I’ll be here just the same –

a kettle on the boil, a fire in the hearth
and warmth throughout our tumbled
home, so tender in my heart.
© 26 June 2006, I.D. Carswell

Soul Food (rev)

(Formerly: Feeding His Soul)

I have a deep affection she said, real
and enduring. I don’t lose my head to
it, nor am I slave to love anymore.

It was all he could have asked in this
brave, truth-telling age, ever more than
he would have anxiously hoped for;

and as far as he was concerned, it was
the same breathless madness of 38 years
past – still gravidly feeding his soul…
© 2007, I.D. Carswell