Hibernaculum Poem by Matthew Coombe

I do not remember where I came across it.
The word just tripped me like a discarded slipper,
lying on a bedroom carpet in the darkness of 3am.

And now it will not go away.
Like the dog that follows me home each evening,
always just a few paces behind and then lies down on my lawn.

Hibernaculum, hibernaculum, hibernaculum.
I even say it in different accents; I change its tones and rhythms.
(it seems to sit well in American for some reason.)

I know what it means,
but I would prefer to think it was Roman.
A military outpost maybe,50 miles north of Hadrian’s Wall.

Now a crumbling ruin on a hillside
that shelters a few grey sheep from the snowy gales.
In the middle of these long winter days,

I could easily be an animal
curled up in a dry hole somewhere
with my tail over my eyes.

How nice it would be to put on a few pounds for warmth,
climb in, and sleep out the cold until spring
as the tendrils of pale roots creep nearer.

But from there I would have missed you tonight.
I would not have been struck by the way the air around you shimmered.
How it sparkled every time you smiled.