Castle By Conor Dowd

On an Autumn afternoon
the lake reflects an image
of a tall, grey castle,
stubborn and immortal,
heavy with the weight of history,
a museum-piece of tragic memory.

Tall, quivering columns split the lake in pieces,
the looking-glass lake
and its great grey companion.

I stand hidden in the nearby trees
unseen by seeing eyes
but watched by eyes unseen
as time collapses and I close my eyes
and wait.

I open my eyes to the half-light of a dream
as four hundred years of stony sleep unwind…

Hands seem to grip swords,
heavy with purpose,
blunt from combat,
instruments of willpower and decision.

I see everything,
every wound and slight endured
by this mass of sound and stone,
this conduit to a past of forgotten voices.

And the hillsides echo with the sound of metal.

Maybe in a fantasy of transformation
this castle breathes a heavy sigh,
chained by gravity,
old an imprisoned to its history…

Only the dull drone of a passing car
reminds me that my watch has stopped,
the tide has turned,
and the day has departed.