Septet for the Week

Septet for the Week

Sean O’Hare

Photography by Toby Mitchell

Each day a line, each week a living poem

I.

The door is open, waiting friends inside,
Inhale the incense hanging in the air.
Lean closer, listen to the passing words
That wind their way through darkened streets and share
Their forms with vapors and the wheeling birds.
Old photographs remembered unaware,
Like the light’s last gasp on a clouded eventide.

II.

An early morning fog over the field,
No hindrance for the prodigal return:
They hand in hand came back into their home.
Still, things we hope may often overturn,
Mixed clouds and sun above us as we roam.
The mirrored corner window makes us yearn
For permanence our second home will yield.

III.

A bagpipe blows the castle down the wind.
This ragged flap of wings over my head
Invades my hall, these windows and these walls
Resounding maps of words that I have read.
The music of things hoped for now recalls
Old memories of places I have tread
And harmonies of voices never thinned.

IV.

He drew the human family to himself – 
Their written words now acted on the stage
Or screens that lull them into waking sleep.
New fragments of Nihonga on the page
Arrange the tired afternoons that creep
Through waiting days; the gold cannot assuage
These volumes, drifting like incense from the shelf.

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Sean O’Hare
Writer & Student