The sun doesn’t rise here, or
Else will never set at all; there is
No security in night’s blankets
Where there is no sanctuary
And every breath is hard-won.
But life can be taken
Looking forward –
Or the opposite –
Which, in places like these
And times like this
Is no way at all.
From where you are –
In the warm and shelter’d
Too-far-away.
With what you know –
And, therefore, what you don’t –
You cannot see what we see
All around us here:
Where dark cloud means open water,
Where seas are pure and white,
Where archangel-smoke rises
From the edges of the land.
You cannot know what we know:
That death is not always a sentence,
Sometimes it’s just a tiny word,
Sometimes a simple promise
Made for us by
Those we never knew …
Who were always
Shaped like you.
Image: www.theargus.co.uk
Stark and beautifully captured.