Along a tangled way I wended
unpicking the stitching of my thoughts,
revisiting the mind’s invisible divisions
until there it stood.
Tumbledown barrier
overcome
by stumbled trees,
storm-snapped branches.
Wedges of limestone
covered in maps of lichen,
thirsty moss, panting ferns,
rusting vines of wire
grafted to the bough’s skin.
A good few days’ graft –
each stone an effort;
a rough-thumbed thought,
a pipe’s pungent respiration.
Chosen and placed
with deliberation;
held by gravity’s cement.
Demarcating
space.
Green air
the same on both sides.
A wildernessed wood
criss-crossed with rotting boughs,
a paradise of fungus.
An Eden of decay.
Gap-toothed wall,
an absence big enough to walk through.
What good does it do?
What good
these barriers
we place between us
when
in the end
we are in the woods
together?
Kevan Manwaring © 2010
From The Immanent Moment, Awen, 2016
http://www.kevanmanwaring.co.uk/the-immanent-moment.html
*****POSTED IN SUPPORT OF THE BRIDGESNOTWALLS CAMPAIGN******
On 20 Jan 2017, we’ll drop banners off bridges around the UK, pledging hope for the future & to take a stand against the rise of the far right. #bridgesnotwalls
