by Aidan Chivers

The sleepless moonlight dusts the tops of trees,

  And tastes a calming scent upon my lips

  Which curls around my outstretched fingertips

And drifts, like fleeing dreams, along the breeze.

From dusky monochrome I turn away –

  I step inside, try in the darkness not to choke,

  And seek within this blacker, thicker smoke

Shapes half-remembered from the light of day.

A suppliant to days now passed, I clutch

  Each fleeing form which hides within these walls

     And feels its way through time’s well-trodden mind;

The corridors of loss evade my touch

  And deep within the years, a spectre calls

     For smoky moons and stars it left behind.