Stuart Payne

“Rewind the Film

I wish I had a film of you.
I’d love to see you move again,
to see the gestures that I knew
when you were here, as we were then,
and know I’d not forgotten what
was true of you and what was not.

I’d watch as if through window panes
and you still moved beyond the glass,
knowing memory remains
although the years and lives must pass,
and from your movements could infer
the unity of what you were.

Perhaps I’d hear your voice again,
if no more than a sound or two,
and know it as I knew it when
we rested on the grass, and you
would close your eyes and feel the sun
as if the end had not begun.

I’d know that what I heard and saw
was not the shadow of my mind
and know you almost as before,
when in the outward form I’d find
the creature that I couldn’t see
or hear, and all you were to me,

as if I felt a wind that blew
across that insubstantial day
or sun illuminating you
because I’ve felt the sunlight play
on flesh, and though the hours pass
had reached the world beyond the glass.”
― Stuart Payne, Voices from Another Room