wordsout by godfrey rust
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Bellver de Cerdanya (II)

Only wood

Which door is it behind?
Where did they hide the good?
Try them, you'll find
they’re only wood.

A choice of empty promises,
a way of passing time.
Fashion, illusion,
a passionless crime.

If one of them should speak
and say I am the door
then I might listen, I might wonder
what the rigmarole was for.

But what kind of door would speak?
Not one that’s only wood
but one hinged on eternity
and framed in flesh and blood.

On what scene would it open?
What agony would face
this splintered human door
that must be hung and hammered into place?

I’ve heard that voice,
I know that broken door, and I’m afraid
not only of the broken wood
but of the shape in which it’s made.


Last of five poems in the poetry/mime production Only Wood, with John and Carina Persson.

© Godfrey Rust 1995, godfrey@wordsout.co.uk. See here for permissions.