Lost Key

I. The Key

It was just a glimpse
A glint in the sun
A flint spark in the park
As I walked along
Lost in a daze
Amidst the maze of thoughts
And paths not taken
Futures forsaken
A flash of something
Out of place in space
And time
A rhyme interrupted
On its steady march
I glanced askance
To find the source
Of my distraction
That point of light
Which changed the course
Of flight in action
And there it lay, an object astray
Dull upon the vivid grass
Like glass that’s lost
Its sheen and shine
Until the rays
Of blue-lit days break through
The haze of dappled tree:
It was a key

II. The Lock

I bent and picked
Then gently flicked
The metal trinket free of dust
Thumbed its dent
And stroked its rust
My eyes mesmerised
By its jagged edge
And ragged mystery
Its silent history
Of openings
Of protecting and concealing
Hidden treasures
The pleasures of unlocking and revealing
An unknown nest
Of artefacts
A chest of gold
Or letters old
And fading, the lines shading
In the trace of stories
Of star struck lovers
Or soldiers’ glories and grieving mothers
Or something more mundane
A plain account of transactions
Between two parties
Now estranged, the tick and tock
Of a broken clock:
Behind the lock

III. The Keyholder

I began to meditate
Upon the lost key’s heft and shape
An object cleft from fire and steel
To reveal something
So unique, like fingerprints
Like hints of who
And clues to why
The echoed cry of one
The puzzle
Of how this story’s begun
I find myself wondering
Pacing and pondering
Tracing the mists of the owner’s travels
The twists and turns
The burns and blisters
As fate’s tapestry unravels
Leaving these fragments
Like loose threads
Fraying through life’s seasons
The reasons long since lost
The untold cost of living
Of giving without getting
Of letting
The most precious things
Disappear on wings of regret
For we forget, as we get older:
We’re the keyholder

IV. The Box

Keys without locks are castaways
Unhanded and stranded
On faraway shores
Where the cause of their being
The eye of their seeing is blinded
So as I held in my palm
This enigma, this charm
I could tell that its spell
Was unbroken
I had stumbled and fumbled upon a token
With a secret unspoken
And now in my power, this synchronous hour
I could grant a dying wish
A moment of bliss
It’s crazy I know
Yet I felt a deep flow
A tide in my head, blood red
Tugging and teasing
Ice logic unfreezing
Like a serpent in search of its tail
In a flash it came through
The thing I must do
For I knew without fail
That this was the key
That the future unlocks
And the fit was with me:
I was the box