It's Still Life

The Drowning of Capel Celyn

A village gone. Into dark stillness that roots it to its soil. It lies weed-hung with the fish. It is too deep to feel the weight of a wave, or to hear a lamb’s bleat. It sleeps where it died in a purple silt.

The store. The church. The butchery and baker. Nothing left behind the wall. All drowned – cups and forks and pots, chairs and tables. Old bones still, submerged into low-pitched colours. There’s no precious trespass on this sunken wreck.

Is that a lamp or a falling star I see. Is that a window shining. A curtain that coils and creeps in its sullen flow.

This lapping sound at my feet, it is a distant and demeaning shuffling of time. Where there is nothing. Behind. The wall. Except a space. Where the wind whistles to escape this deep blue grave.

dVerse Prosery 144 words sans title, including the phrase “there is nothing behind the wall except a space where the wind whistles” – from “Drawings By Children” by Lisel Mueller. For more info on Capel Celyn, which was a village submerged in a lake for Liverpool’s water supply. © Misky 2020 Image from Wikipedia