Do I dare dwell
Night and day
Sacrifice lesser thoughts
For prized noble insights
Into some or other
Look, word, a smile
Given to me by one adored
Once upon a time...
I do dare
Forgive me if words
Do drag on
But I am of the mind
That love, a cure-all
Conntagion runs through
Generations
If these words and purest thoughts
Never reach her ears
For certain a chance to
Float about for many
Hundreds of years
Is that not how
I caught it first
From a blue green eye
Locked on mine - but once
Decades saved, not wasted, this house I built
Devoted hands, gainful work, nights and weekends
Searched longingly up and down, high streets and low
Waiting for my heart to jump out, at the sight of her
Saved, invested, scrimped and pawned
Hoping one day, enter new dawn
Window closed, garden bare, I set upon the terrace stair
Knocked and waited, in the rain
Admiring abalone strewn along front wall
Evidence of inhabitants, though no one there
Someone lived inside once, absence inlaid in rainbow pearl
Me and view of quaint corner garden, sandstone steps
Panorama or paranormal, needn't matter
This house, I have built with hearts and hands
Love inhabits and dwells always, echoes in empty rooms
Filled with laughter, stories and poems
My life, I have built, a shelter from storms
Will water soil for one-day blooms.
For many years I pondered
What was behind ivy wall
Sandstone thick quarried
From ancient hill, the one
I gazed upon until my lids
Grew heavy with waiting
For dreams to come
Keys thrust upon me to open
Hulking oak door with bolt
Chamber rusted shut
Determined to make a home
Surrounded by eucalypts
For good cover from
The elements soaking into
My pores
Heaven scent aroma of cineol opens my eyes
Brighter to adore
Walled garden no secret anymore
For before me lies the vast
Hills and plains of freedom
And realise it was I who was contained in my own
Secret garden all this time
Weight of the world lifts
From the shoulders of those
Who dare not compare
Themselves by status
But by the seasons of life
They have truly lived
Count the stars of heaven 