for gwen
enter through unreasoned gates
one over-grown night, when uncut stars
on crossed wires catch wool-wisps of light
follow a dull curve of drive, down
past macrocarpa & pine, antiseptic
smelling, but there’s no anodyne
you must open a door which warns
that bones & iron rust, enter here
seek what you’ve lost because you must
slummock tears, you touch wet walls
coming unglued, appearances thin
maps of darker places coming through
strange consolation, to build anew
to leave behind, light arrives & is lost
& a roof staring open, bewildered & kind.
From: Beach, Eric, “Grief House” in Westerly, No., Winter 1994, p. 39.
(http://setis.library.usyd.edu.au/ozlit/westerly/all/230113.pdf)
Date: 1994
By: Eric Beach (1947- )