well-wishes

I have watched the rain shimmer down
into the slow gravity of the well
and listened for the answer of its borrowed voice
the watering of words by growing rain.
it is a voice made eloquent by stillness and silence
by whispered wishes and hidden hopes
a throat filled with echoing ambitions
fed with the fortune of many coins—
of past and present, of dreams and black water
the smile of Narcissus to peering ferns
a ring of promises, made and remade
to have and to hold, in sickness and health
flowers flickered and tossed, love found and lost
secrets and regrets funnelled below
time's iniquities, memory's infidelities
dissolved in opaqueness, blind eye of the well
the weight of words unspoken.
the faces throng the stony circle,
with changing voices they laugh and cry
and throw their noises into the quiet earth
at night they draw buckets of stars
their tears hurled like spears into deceiving waters.
the lovers, old men and ghosts walk by
in the kiss of the well they have drowned too much
sung too loudly and laughed too well
the immolation of a selfless self-lived passion
the smoulder of stars at apogee and perigee.
these walls have been shaped, carved like the wind
by the whispers of men and the sighs of women
rounded by the tumble of Sisyphus' stone
its waters still but changing still
marking with ripples each quiet visitor
the fingerprint of every tear.

the seasons change, time comes and goes
old men are born and babies age
in the morning the women draw water with buckets
in the rain the waters shimmer back down
not old or new, too ageless to tell
a voice drifting in the gravity of the well.

_____________________

About some things I tend to forget frequently and have to relearn every so often.