Recollection
where branches pull apart in welcome
and leaves caress like lonely fingers
the soil blinks with half-buried glass;
the shards threaten wayward feet
where the stones bear scrawled messages
uncountable footprints mark ritual ground
drifting detritus comes to rest,
pulling against jagged edges
a wraith waits
among the revenants of recklessness
once cast, impossible to recollect
*
Crypt
rotted to the bone
abandonment: inviting
the house lives all alone
the doors fall off
window-pupils wide
the shadows do their shifting
our questing fingers tie themselves
to the wall
the crypt will have its traps
but every warrior’s got good armor and a sword
What lurks around the corner can’t lurk there forever
I wish I’d brought a flashlight but
we’ve reached the time for haste, you see
there’s damsels waiting eagerly, in distress
there’s writing on the walls
and writing on the floor
the authors have escaped
and left again.
some come here for the danger
others ’cause it’s safer
Me, I hope I run more to than from
*
Maze
absent from the tempered mind
invisible yet undisguised
what dwells within the cracking weathered concrete
where like a hand up from the dirt
the architect’s mistake gives birth
to children of the twilight and the alien
we built a refuge from unwanted things
when we were small and tales were ripe for believing
although the night is pierced with eyes
no mighty plague of fireflies
could forge its constellation ‘neath the streetlamp
so while the moonlight goads them on
new wings will come to perch upon
a line of silk strung out between the shadows
we built a refuge from unwanted things
when we were small and tales were ripe for believing
we took our place amid the heros and beasts
and we made friends with both
just before the magic dies
we revel in what’s left behind
the maze made from the ruins of the castle.
The leaves fell down a while before they rotted
now it’s time for us to leave the scattered litter where it’s frozen
*
Path
beneath a rusting sun
my footprints start to crumble
there are tire tracks
through everything that’s left
the claws of life
dismantled all my trees
The ground is combed in uniform perfection.
a perfection that
will not survive the winter
Tiny roots will crack
the surface;
softening the falls
of uncoordinated knees
stumbling towards
new growth
there’s a little path
through the last remaining shade
it will bloom into
a cave
Summoning the young
to hold the waiting hands in
the branches.
*
If
the wraith takes shelter from cold August rain
and watches a river take shape
down through the sand and into the soccer field
the ants make their castles by the sea
But the wraith has no strength for the battering wind
‘though its ghastly fingers cling to the trunk
the tree bends
if there was love
I would see it carved in the bark
if there was silence
I would hear it rustle the leaves
if there was peace
I would find it
burrowing under the stones
*
A poem cycle by Matt Horrigan.
The author of these poems is an undergraduate third-year Music Composition major at McGill University.
Collage art by Bryan Olson
