Lapidary 1:38am (Sense-impression continued)

Lapidary 1:38am


There's a baby's head skimming briskly above the playground wall.
The school children are rapt: how could someone so young be so tall?
There's me on the other side, arms stretched holding my son aloft,
As I walk up the footpath; and they watch the baby's head waft
By like some aberrant autumnal husk, brisk yet protracted;
And this is linear time, the role of love enacted;
The role of love, to interact, to play, to gad, thus to live;
I do not date my poems, but often I will opt to give
The notes that build towards their completion a time, and I call
These Lapidaries; a baby's head skimming above the wall,
Behind the P.E. shed for which the children are entrusted
To use The Great Wooden Key; and the wall's bricks are encrusted
With greyish-brown ivy, dying back above its severed base;
And when I stop and turn to look at death, so turns my son's face
To the school children, and he smiles; and this is the role of love:
We lark, stop, reminded of death, whilst our children see above
The wall.