Elapse
One mother, one child and half the world was paralysed
Some ran for the shelter, others spent lifetimes avoiding their eyes
And time itself was torn in two, to after and before
The sweet, sweet dance of circumstance, silent, washed up on the shore

With a ticking of hearts taking over, the world primed like a bomb
As I stand above the shattered rock, where the tremor first came from
Consciousness will tear one day like a curtain in the fog
And home will come like a tunnel end or a missile thrown by God.

A simple step through a blind man's void that poets chipped in stone
And everything we want to know will be laid as bare as long dead bones
With morning broken, blackbird's eye will seek horizon's glare
A painful sight of all of light, as night uses up its share.

And grass has passes into the fire where willows kiss the stream
And a million years of history elapses with a scream
There is no mystic milestone here from some ancient traveller's choice
Just the endless echo of the first cry of a baby's voice.

And I was dreaming of light
And I wanted you to know
That today there is no night

2 January 1997


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