You draw my attention from pondering path
like thoughts collected in a well-worn carpet
and make me wonder, as with love and hate,
which came first- bark almost buried to blind
or the sweet lie of this lichen grown around
your years as if you where

the whole to its being, the breath to its lungs,
the furrow to its field, the ground to its grass,
the comfort to its carpet,

the last shout of its happiness.

All words and photographs by Damien B Donnelly