Like a copper coin the sun
shone through the mist,
withdrew to re-emerge
a yellow moon,
then hid as vapour thickened
and there was only the grey sky.
Just so my heart,
that warmth in the rib-cage,
heart for short,
appears and disappears,
glows like bronze or copper,
seeming constant.
It burns through cloud,
spreads light on air,
gilds earth and then withdraws
as if it never was.
Behind the greyness still
the sun on others shines.
There! Look now, it returns.
The penny has moved in the sky.
Burning ego, spinning circle,
do we gravitate again,
cast in the sea,
and hoarsely cast again,
become another
pebble on the beach?
Ice and water wear the pebble round,
the pebbles wear each other round,
grind to this deposit which
children build castles on,
festooned with weed,
mined by moats.
The penny drops but not
my heart dropped, no,
these sudden sightings
embrace constancy.
The heart burns on, and twice,
or thrice, and times again
we pay for that penny change,
that gift, cheap at the price.
©Terry Hodgson2020
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