Mute

I hear what you're saying
Muffled through cement blocks -
Poetical praying
To the rhythm of clocks.

Beat, beat the words,
But it isn't quite working
There is a ford
But the water is murky.

Language takes its own way down,
Not a goose-stepping tread
Rather, it falls and it drowns
But I can't say it's dead.

Sunshine is more elusive than haze
So we talk and we laugh
Through a chink, in a daze
Pyramis, Thisbe, trapped in a gaff.

And yet there is love
Strained though may be
Cupped hand round a dove
We muse on the free.

Maria Lawson, '13