We all can hear the train

it calls

The rails sing its approach

it calls

The crowd, it moves to see

it calls

…the train come out to feed

it calls

It cries for me to leap

it calls

O not today, o train, I say

it calls it calls it calls

An early morning journey led me down a new path.

It was new to me but not new to the erosion of time.

It was on this path that I glanced down to see the rat.

It wasn’t a particularly engaging rat; he (or she, as it may have been) appeared rather largish, but otherwise was most ordinary in rat-like respects.

The thing that jumped out at me was that this rat, unlike others I’ve heard in the walls at night, was dead.

Dead and bleached to a whitish-grey colour with time and exposure.

“Now,” I said to myself, as I was alone (with the exception of the dead, decaying rat, and one does not speak in public to such things, for fear of being labelled as a lunatic) “now why would no one clean up this rat?”

Then I looked about more closely, and saw that the rat fit in well with the decor of the rest of the neighbourhood.

It will be a long time before I pass that way again, I pray.

My Heart is gone.

• somewhere

Is it safe?  Will I find it again?

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If my Heart makes its way back to me, will I recognise it?

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I pray to God to Whom we pledged our Hearts would beat as One

• somewhere

…that we would be made whole again.

• somewhere