Planet Waves (Poetry)

He leaves the well-worn comfort of his claustrophobic room —
the familiar humdrum blend of background sounds:
a metronomic clock; low, droning voices through the wall;
the creak of weary wood — lured by a night bird’s far-off call,
ventures out of doors, beyond clipped privet bounds
of prim retirement homes and, hugging close the grainy gloom,

he skirts the deadlocked village — closed and curled in leaden sleep,
made secure against dark’s trespass as one man
follows paths that sheep have worn, slowly climbs the shadowed hill
and finds the night his friend. The sharp-edged air is sweet and still —
nothing wakes old dogs from rabbit dreams. Eyes scan
the heavens for a sign but unmoved stars and planets keep

their distant rings of mystery intact — like bubbles hung
in suspension — a thin gas and liquid jet —
an apothecary’s potion that seers and science mixed
to dull pain’s inner space and soothe Faith’s trembling echo fixed
on other worlds where a stranger sun will set
and warm the seas that swarm with life as when the earth was young.

Unfathomable silence drowns his inmost thoughts and fears
as chill currents ripple past to swell and break
in deep, subconscious rhythms — an eternal natural beat
that pulses through the ether to where sky and mountains meet,
bends his ear to Heaven’s orchestrated ache —
the endless unsung symphonies — the music of the spheres.

At dawn they find and lead him back, and wisely turn the key
on his ramblings when he asks “Can’t you hear it?”
Thinking it kind to humour him with an indulgent smile
and prescriptions for sedation, they observe him all the while
as he watches at night’s window, calmly sits
and tunes in to space transmissions from another galaxy.