- In February
and before the light had left the afternoon
I saw through the window that it had fallen.
I went out in my shoes on the leaves and stones
where the ground and broken branches slope down,
and I peeered and squinted in the cold grey space
for the gleam of gold on the brown.
I found it against the wall, but crippled:
it had lost a delicate metal piece
so that, more than ever like me,
the wind could hardly make it sing.
The wind blew when I came back in,
but I was not tempted to hang the chime again,
so it lay crumpled on the table
until another time, safe for new string,
which slowly decays after days of rain.
Sibalan Forrester
