Where troubles play, the feeling’s light,
The world comes out to see:
The wind is calling to the moon,
The pine-scent’s floating free.
And with the howls of distant dogs,
And down unto the sea,
In freezing air beneath cold stars
My spirit spoke to me –
‘Too long you’ve waited, time is done,
Too long, the time is right:
You change upon this mountain top,
You change – you change tonight.’
‘Too long’, I groaned, the time was done :
‘Too long’ – I held my head:
Better I had been unborn,
Better I was dead.
Better I had found a fire
And plunged myself in there,
To change myself, to live with pride,
Was more than I could dare.
But all he said, my spirit,
Was ‘Stand up tall and straight!’
The time has come for change tonight –
My spirit will not wait.
19/7/00
One night in Greece, chilled to the bone at the top of a mountain and feeling very low, I looked out to the far sea with dogs barking faintly in the distance and thoughts of change whirled around in my head.
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