The fate of the watcher

The watcher

You learned very young

How to stand on the outside

On the circumference of a circle

Whose centre did not contain you

And observe

In many ways it was a mystery to you

This world of adults

Struggling hard to find a way to build a place

Where they were safe and belonged

While all the time fighting

With truer feelings hidden under a blanket of silence

That muffled the sounds

Of real life

Of true feeling

So now

As I observe you watching

I sense how it feels to live inside your skin

And how great the burden feels

To realise that you may never know

How it feels to be a part

Of this world of strangers

But just once in a while

Someone will come near

And enter the circumference of your circle

And smile with eyes that see deep inside your soul

Or recognise it’s presence in your poems

And then you will know you are not only the watcher

But the teller too

And that although the fate of the watcher

Was something that chose you

All those years ago

You are not alone

For in the telling of it all

You draw a circle around everything

And draw others inside

That special place

Where the open heart and wisdom of a watcher

Creates some kind of home