Living water: epitaph for a canon

There is a far lake over which the death mist curls.
Its sombre pewter patina refuses to reflect the living world.
God knows the deep grief buried there, in shifting swathes,
Tear-locked in hidden solitude long darkened as the grave.

Only a heron lightly stirs the flattened wastes,
Leaving unmoved, beneath, the frozen time-warp shales,
Folded in Lethe's seeping molecules of liquid ice,
Buried in clay-formed catacombs of undivided nights.

Late with regrets for silver words that were not said,
The unsailed water, filled with chronic unseen dread,
Catches the wind of unconscious God-ward longing thoughts,
Immersing and holding strong pain's unforgiving last retort.

Released from futile, sterile words and silken lies,
From the deep waters of the divided heart and saddened mind,
Set free to join the call of heaven's soaring bell,
And wake, washed clean beside the Lamb's eternal well.

B. I. Hartless

Lake at moonrise, Tyberton taken by Beren Hartless