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A Morning In Miniature
Carpet patterns
and the swirlings of grain
in wooden floors were maps
to me of exotic worlds,
portal holes for a child
to enter and explore
places edged on the
furthest reaches
of the fabulous.
Even today, as an old man,
I saw a landscape
in miniature when morning sunlight
came through the window
and crept across
the room, illuminating a map
in the knots and welts of grain
rolled out on the pinewood floor.
I found myself off on tour
swept into the detail
along its ravines
and imagined trails,
into its wild inland,
the unfenced territories whose
vast subterranean caves
well far below what
can be seen, the dank
dormitories of dream.
And then,
above the underworld,
dry plains paused
by rocky outcrops
of doubt, the long silences
that stretch for miles
and curl up in corners
when evening falls.
The star pitted dark hung
with mystery, morse
for the mystic,
until a sober perspective
shrank the sublime
back into a smaller space
to fit ordinary sight
and became
the comforting familiarity
of a well trodden
wooden floor, aged, uneven,
basking in the morning's
honeyed light.
Copyright ©
Paul Willason
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