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COPSTONE HALL

You see from the garden night’s tree-ivy
a house that was, its gothic walls, its last
keeper, almost insane, among candles.
No winter moon, not that you need such rays
other than from Pegasus, Orion.
Surrogate eyes, of creatures or the long
interred, what can you vouch for, what infer
from probabilities, of the capped stone
once inhabited?
               Mind turns, uncertain,
to harbour-lights and quiet sex on stones
unspiked by lust. And to old, musty books—
youthful delves for diagnostics—to be
bought from a stack.
                In bright night kitchen light
what would best have been from an existence
to understand or guess? Will insect eyes
register in my ghost unique ley lines
beneath its vanished vanity and waste?

Alan Marshfield

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