A Good Friday Poem for John

For John Freeman, a response to
Easter Monday: Good News
(The Light is of Love, I think)

It was this:
sitting on the bus
gazing into far fields
wishing for that clarity.
Seeing yet not seeing
blankets of green
rushing past,
and as the haze
blots every surface
there's a desperation
in trying to lose yesterday
and the day before
or maybe find a way
of sharpening
the edges of the road
that gap between sky and cloud.
The only answer seems to be
the random grasp of words
spread across the page
of a favourite book,
a poem not read before
and though the swish of green
on either side means nothing
suddenly I feel
your cold wind on my face
the sun shining on your river
the shudders of your bridge
and you were right:
the page doesn't smile
or press my hand
or speak or kiss me
but the words shout
the kind of music that
had almost been forgotten.
The clay-coloured rooftops
stud the pale sky,
mintcoloured medieval buildings
stand proud
at the point where the bus
slows on the corner
rumbles over cobbles
and as I make my way
through clusters of people
the hallelujahs
are everywhere.

FIRE 22, p 43; Grace Gauld