Signpost

By Madeleine Roberts

When we are lost in the woods the sight of a signpost is a great matter. –C.S. Lewis

He called it joy— 
An almost-forgotten state of the spirit 
Wearied by the humdrum  
And rubbish held in common with the world 
Dreaming in a shade of morning 
That is not for the poet to collect. Sometimes  
I stumble into strings of words crafted 
where only a part remembers, the true language of myself 
Before I assumed the weight of passing seasons. At this  
The spirit cracks a slit through the deepening fears 
Of autumnal days. Ah, she sighs, you see? And I recall 
Visions of places I have never seen in raindrops clinging to window glass, 
A doubly crystalline display of transience 
And otherworldly beauty.  
Then comes a dull aching of the chest, 
As if pricked with a sudden remembrance of 
The rightness of a melodious golden niche
Eager to assume the unbelonging.  
In this I sense more than my share of life, the invisible axis of  
Shortening days, a wordless groaning. Candlelight in the night sky—  
when I fervently pray for illumination in the watches of a red evening, 
This is a way of response. For within the somber stillness before 
That sweet grief dissolves into everyday fabricated pleasures, 
each soul lights a candle  
in memory of home.