Spare Change

I.

Already browning leaves
bask in focussed warmth:
the definition of sunlight

held in hard-edged shadows,
which slant bars of night
across the furrows.

I squeeze the most
out of time remaining:
removal of crumbs

from arcane elevations
with dampened fingers, thumbs,
and expectations.

Leaving is the absent word
on a torn page:
smoke in a blind spot

where one can't be found -
trusting footsteps do not
follow you around.

II.

Taking a breather:
I turn the block to the corner, and back.
Retracing routes to a dead reckoning
of climb-downs, compromises,
and short-lived triumphs.

To stay is to swim,
to drink the poisoned river.
Limbs stretch, pull, kick and glide,
emerging silent for a year
beyond the point of no return.

Catching traffic at a halt,
I scuttle by, green lighted.
Place a coin at the bedside
should the ferryman not hear my rhyme.
Always there's a fare to pay.

III.

Hung up on tenterhooks
a wet blanket of doubt dries.
The masks of here and there,
two-faced, waiting on a word.

Leaf-fall as rain soaks away.
The shouted team-talk of six-a-sides -
lunch hours played out
in swearing, sweating echoes.

Parking meters promise
"free use of unexpired time".
I plot reappearances
to the rhythm of wheel on rail.

And doze in grubby compartments.
Sunlight and shadowed passages -
the clear cut choices
long made, long unrealised.


IV.

Pressure on a button then,
for drawn-out if becomes when
in the blink of a moment.

Familiar faces, soon no more
than unsharp recollection,
count the eight years down to days.

I am my own dissector,
measuring mixed sentiment
with a metre length ribbon;

And seeking some balanced view,
which neither labels nor betrays,
is mere shift I'm working through.

Sliced strand by strand, the stale knots
loosen, expose my parting shots:
Home again. Whole again. Home.

Commentary:

This sequence developed over a period of three months, as first the prospect, and then the reality of moving on - after years of long-distance commuting - played through my mind like an ever-changing film script. Each part represents a change in mood/focus. I wanted to convey the ambivalence of being both nostalgic for times about to pass, and yet glad to be going.
In general, I'd argue that ideas are best developed in a 'real' context; but here I had problems along the way because the personal catharsis represented didn't readily lend itself to concrete imagery. So, in the second section I made allusion to the mythological river Styx ("silent for a year", "ferryman", "fare to pay") instead. As a symbolic means to an end, it seemed apt - my old workplace sitting alongside the Thames. The apparent failure of logic - one is silent when submerged, not otherwise - is thus explained. According to mythology, if the Gods swore falsely by the Styx in taking a draught of its waters, then a year's silence was their punishment.

Also, and again experimentally, in the final section I've employed some everyday workplace vocabulary; which imparts some reality for me, if no one else! ("pressure on a button", "unsharp", "metre length ribbon", "view", "labels", "sliced", "expose", "shots")

Incidentally, the phrase "on tenterhooks" has its origins in blanket making, much as described. Just one of those felicitous discoveries it's great to find a poetic home for.