Ruano’s Matter

At the wall, 

Ruano found peace.

                Ruano found peace in the way lines met

and intersected: 

              bricks

           and pallets

    the darkness after matter...

         and that water pipe fending off the sky.

                            "Shelter is a feeling,"  Ruano knew,

              and felt himself hugged

                by the wet smell

                         and the shuffing of somebody’s plastic bunting

                     and the low light 

                      and even the colour of the fox-gecko

                                   painted on the wall.

Ruano’s Matter

     To his left the fence was like a matrix

             listing layers of green,

         and the road sign buried

its face in a tree.

"Going nowhere" thought Ruano

        putting down his load,

                   watching leaves tickle

              the bucket's edges

           moved by the same warthog breeze 

         that snuffled his hair

                    and iced his bones.

       "Autumn", thought Ruano.

                         The sky would paint its lines more fiercely soon;

               it was time to find a new place.

This would do

                here between the pallet and the wall

A new place

        warm and sheltered:  his own compost.

      Spring and the worms would know him,

              the darkness after matter.