Where There Was Glass

You slip between the arches

And I think of that circle of sky

Where the stained-glass should be

Blue with you, now grey in my hands

Those words that lifted my gaze

Straight to its absence, my surprise

And in turn

To its returning presence

When you volunteered your writing -

Starting from the old spire -

I understood why these photographs

Need to dissipate first:

Making time

For blue glass to shatter

So that I can collect the pieces from the other side

The Impluvium