The first station

In this room, a man and the sun, both leaving, 

And in their leaving, as if bleeding into the other

One becomes Translucent, 

The other more golden, as like to set fire 

To the rim of the earth when both should expire

The last rings brighter as it falls, the first in stillness-shroud

The deafening silence of the crowd, in this empty out-pouching of the corridor  

I crept into his room, to see the end of life begin

This crumbling mountain of man, and

I straining  on tiptoes to be let in – 

A disciple,  I’d taken his story, woven into it, I’d “visited”

But, abruptly, as the days made known a hand fell, 

Gently, as you shed light, stopped the shuttle in mid-flight

And told my asking eyes, the tapestry was finished.  It is done.     

Work hadn’t started yet, I was not hard yet, in my discipleship

My heart drummed the strings and thrummed with tension

In my ears, and in my throat, and, God forgive me, in my voice

Weighted chest, your little visitor.  

Arm outstretched to give you my ungloved-hand.  

I left the room before the golden light I left before you left.  

They were making ready

To take you

From the loom

I heard the mechanism of the door click,

Behind me, standing in that corridor, in halogen light

But I had stolen a thread from your tapestry, one golden, from the window

The hand that spun, and stopped, unpicked part of me, to weave you in.    

I love, and in your leaving, love you more.  

The first condemned to death I saw.  

K.MacGloin For the man I remember from Huntingdon.