We are among clouds
All absorbing moisture
As the sky lowers gently down.
Settling softly around us
In nebulous silver twilight
Our souls the only buffer
Between night and daytime
Between hell and higher ground.

We are subdued by it
Made solemn, dumb
A crowd of clacking footsteps
Marching muffled in the lull.
Faces eluded by mist, this
Hushed and skulking quietude
This looming slowness, this
Toneless humming; hidden sound.

We are only water
Only droplets parted by air,
Validated by shadows.
Vapours, creatures of the half-light,
Making structures that are
Watertight, pretending we are not
Permeable. Shrouded in plastic
Raincoats, afraid to be unbound.

Floating without dissolving
Swimming among the drowned.

Labels: poetry