Cave canem

 Raven heralded trees, their burden just time.
Cropped as if a lawn, ponies oblige the grass,
They ignore the rough clumped bracken, on sour, bitter,soil.
Textures predominate, sight is secondary here.
A stumpy lumpen castle, four square to the wind.
A holy aisle, a holy isle,
enter it quietly, as if a cathederal.

This is a place of rightness, admirable, tangible.
Though the hound remains unsighted still.
Not lofty by any means, stunted even.
But perched on hill it has the illusion of height.
The view throughout the compass immaculate,
(in my conception.)
Old rock, cuneiform rough, unbuilt,
tumbled, stained, lichened.
Colour runs the gamut of muted greens and greys.

Touch it, run your bare hands over it, it will bite.
The hound snaps back at your imprudent clawings.
Eroded, windburned, ice-cracked, ice-cold.
Razors your hands, tears at your skin.
Edge flakes, layback, but not laidback.
Aerobic wall, suspension flake, my nemesis
Short but fierce, they are always there.

I should flow up them, as if swimming in a dream,
(and in my dreams I do.)
Soar up without effort, it should go, I should work it.
So many times I’ve tried,  reliance on new quartz,
pebbles, unknown edges, thin chances.
A hope a boot adheres, just this once, please.
Inevitably, it all peters out too soon, a move too short.
Just when you feel it may have been worth it, it is.
Then you know it always was.

There’s aways a face leeside to the wind, shelter, quick drying.
A place for sunsets and easy banter.
The place of serious play, wilful effort, pointless pursuits.
Often, always even, it’s enough just to be there, to have been there.
Having again left the last moves until another day,
job unfinished, unconsummated, a challenged unmet,
somehow makes for devotion,
as if suspending the final event delays the inevitable.

Breathe now, take pause to enshrine this moment.
This rock is etched with memory.
These times are carved in the rock.
The strictures cannot be changed.
Time is suspended, briefly.
We remain encoded.
The players cannot escape.
Not that they’ve ever wanted to.

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