Winter Trails

Still Breathing

I lay and listened to the even breathing
of a sleeper next to me.
It was steady and unconscious,
deeply sleeping peacefully.

But no one lay by me there
in my solitary, king-size bed.
With books and drafts a third I share,
little room for another head.

I waited for the dream to flee:
it would not go but slept on deep.
stayed past my waking and head-shaking.
A lovely sound to make me weep.

Remembering then a stertorous wheeze
seeming so close, but far away:
murder of crows in distant trees
gave the illusion power to stray...

Yes, the bathroom was open and
its window too, ajar a crack.
I stumped out then, put wood in t'hole*
and slumped quickly back.

Now. All was quiet. But still I fret
was it my will which sent it hence?
I try to hear a breathing but yet
cannot in the street's open ambience.

This was no rough conjure of crows,
though still some faint machine noise may
have cast that glamour on my day.
It seemed so real. Who knows?


.........................

*means 'shut the door'