Mute Walls

Spined brambles
 hang in the once windowed arch
 vine like pendulums
 swing with the breeze
 ticking off 
 time in painless repetition 
 measurement of 
 past rendered redundant by years
 now is 
 the dwelling abandoned 
 to the present 
 carpeted by autumns
 of decades
 to create fertile depth
 for new life 
 under the roof of sky and cloud 
 as moss painted 
 plaster peels away paint
 to reveal the walls 
 that silently sequester 
 the memories 
 of the past inhabitants 
 gone forever 
 buried in the dappled light 
 of the whispering 
 rustle of neighbourhood gossip
 past is the secret 
 stored in cold stone 
 forever mute
 these walls don't talk.

Ciaran Burke