yesterday lost

I found heaven in a painted matchbox once.
Because someone told me it had been painted by someone I’d loved.
I didn’t even remember but that didn’t matter.
I thought it was right that I should treasure it even though I didn’t really care.
It didn’t slide out easily because the paint was thick.
Green and purple, I always knew it wasn’t really any good.
I could see the unsteady hands in every uneven stroke.
But sometimes when you’re pretending you forget the pretense.
And everything becomes as real as you pretended it was.
So I cried when I lost it one day in the rain.
Funny how many stories end with a hole in a pocket.

I found heaven in an old broken piano.
They told me it could never be fixed.
Something rotten about the wood on the inside.
I think I liked it that way because I never complained.
I used to finger the carved cherries on the stout little legs.
And make up little stories about the one that had broken off.
It didn’t make a difference that all the notes sounded the same.
A stiff footfall on a wooden staircase.
They managed to fix it in the end. And I forgot what it had meant.
Like an easter egg which had lost its own inside.

I found heaven in the line of thunderclouds over the southern horizon.
The grey line over the other grey line – but it meant so much more.
And the way they sped nearer – the vastness of existence.
And the first sudden sound of raindrops on the hardened tiles overhead.
The smell of wet earth, how it always came down to that.
And the upturned leaves, bent over in the wind.
The wild exhilaration of nature invading our boundaries.
But summer skies are bluer when the rain has passed.
And spring is only spring when it comes after winter.
I guess I’ll find heaven again when the year turns round.
A different sort of heaven, but that’s always how it is.

I found heaven in a little wild tune.
That came to me with no reasons and no origins.
I whistled it all day, and hummed it when I was tired.
I tried picking it up on the piano, but it didn’t sound the same.
It came with no obligations… and it went without the same.
Only the sides had reversed. And it didn’t come back any more.
I tried many times to remember, but you know how it is.With a tune that doesn’t come back.
It didn’t even hurt when I gave up.