My pen has hovered over the page like a metal detector <br />so many times because of you. <br /> <br />All our walks through your woods, around your lake. <br />Me, the blind beggar and you leading me gently <br />by the hand over the twisted roots of meaning. <br />And I cannot count the number of nights we have sat <br />facing one another across the table in the kitchen, <br />revelling in the rusty sting of whiskey, while the <br />candle flame flits endlessly over the wallpaper. <br /> <br />But this is my time to address you and for you <br />to quit shuffling the deck, leave the dog to twitching in her sleep. <br /> <br />It feels like I have been living in the same house for years <br />and then you arrive one day on my doorstep to ask directions - <br />as ordinary as a pigeon settling on the garden fence - <br />to point out a door in a hallway I had never seen before, <br />behind which lay I room I never knew existed. <br /> <br />So just so you know… <br />the room now has it’s own bed, a bright spray of flowers <br />that we change daily and on the wall hangs a small picture <br />of a horse grazing in a sunny meadow. <br />A horse fenced in by the blinding heights <br />of a black, square frame of wood.<br /><br />Matthew Coombe<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/billy-collins-2/