There is a dark place in my eye,
like a thread, or limb of mind,
that wavers when I turn to see,
though a mirror shows there’s nothing there.

I looked upon a bowl of flowers,
with my eye towards its heart
and saw the blossoms fold in two
and vanish in a stick of light,
as if a hinge had folded shut.

Then it all flowed back again:
the bowl of flowers was on the shelf.
But after that I found the scent
of every living thing had changed.

I went into a market square,
a festive day of wind-borne kites,
and gazed upon the busy stalls
and watched the people fall to dust
till just a field of flowers remained.

But one pale woman still stood there,
so lovely as to stop my breath,
for all her hair was full of smiles,
her glance as long as winter night.

I stood among those deep-hued flowers,
in the silence of the sun,
all wrapped about with winking hair,
with kisses twitching through my limbs,
so stunned I couldn’t move at all.

Then the market place came back,
and people laughed and toiled once more.
And now the world around me turns,
while a gorgon preens beneath my skin.

A chain of days puffs from the old smoke stack
of a train that barely makes it up the hill,
and love sits beside me in a third-class seat,
while dreams nod in a corner on their own,
and soul is working somewhere out of sight.
Then I think there's nowhere else I'd rather be,
than on a train that leaves from what I know,
through the undiscovered landscapes of a life,
to that place we all must go to down the line.

As the sun comes tumbling down towards the dark,
the carriages are a flock of golden lights,
and the last points chatter slow as we pull in
to the shadow-casting city in its rose.
The ancient wheels drum-roll us up the platform,
as the old train draws wheezing to a stop
and I hear the engine gasp and then grow quiet.
Then soul steps off to do the thing that souls do,
as we others spot you watching by the gate,
where you've waited all these years to take us home.