Recluse (Poetry)

Huddled in the wet embrace of trees,
blank walls exude an air of resignation,
admit the gradual comfort of decay,
eye-sockets patched, in deepest meditation.

Acceptance more than apathy prevails,
absorbs both chilling trickle and the flood
storming through a fickle summer's day
that drums its mixed agenda in the mud.

Traffic swishes past, oblivious
to one small scene of rural dereliction
partly camouflaged by rain-soaked leaves
dispensing, drop by drop, their benediction.

Picturesque, this aura of abandon -
all purpose lost, denied a useful role,
emptied of identity and worth
now weeds and weather wrestle for control.

No chink of light, no number on the door,
no clue to ownership, the bricks confide
nothing of their history - keep mum
and hoard old echoes jealously inside.

Not quite in ruins yet, the cottage squats
a stone's throw from the seething carriageway,
its spirit on some other, higher plain,
the changing world kept stubbornly at bay.