! That Bit Of Pinky Stuff On The Carpet Poem by Michael Shepherd

What is it doing on the clean carpet,
that bit of pink something?

Not a curse upon the house-proud
nor a criticising comment on the housekeeper,
or retribution for the gap under the front door,
or – it it’s blown in from the garden –
a hint of early autumn threatening poetic sadness
or a reminder of the fragile evanescence of all things

it is a whisper from God
which has eluded the debris whirling between stars,
the heat of the sun, its solar dust,
the icy-cold of atmospheres,
airless space of ether,
antennae of early-warning systems,
hover of spy-planes,
click and silent breath of listening devices,
tick tick tick of incriminating tapes recording,
unforgiving eye of spy cameras,
the chatter of minds forever elsewhere,

it is a petal shed from the geranium outside the door,
of the most delicate, almost transparent
pink no rose no shell no just itself
of a fine fine substance which no man can yet make
on its long, long pilgrimage
from beyond the whole vast cosmos of
innumerable solar systems, beyond where
space bends upon itself in homage
where the mind of God dwells

to find itself again in my suddenly open heart
as if it had never travelled from or to,
this whisper of pinky-rosy-shell-like stuff
on the carpet by the warm bare foot.