LOCK

Opposite the lock,
with its companion cottage,

and flowers by the towpath,

reflecting the water’s calm, unhurried flow,

the millwheel turns no longer.

It looks the part, the mill,

complete with channelled leet,

but still no wheel turns.

The function is forlorn.

Yet opposite the mill

the lock has lasted well:

almost two hundred years,

just one of dozens

along this partly man-made waterway

that still remains a watercourse,

God-given.

Passing through the lock

will resonate, not just with history,

but with all the voyages

that we embark on:

yearly, monthly, by the week,

even by the minute.

And largely overlooked.

Yet the gates of every lifelong journey

are opened and then closed.

For a little moment of this passage

we are locked in, locked out.

The outlook changes with each rise and fall.

Through all the ups and downs,

we are forever finding

our own true level.

The strangeness is, we rarely know it;

too often, like the millwheel,

the function seems forlorn:

the passage wasted,

and the flowers left to fade.

It need not be – it is the choice we made.