Triptych Words and music by Talis KimberleyI am faced with three doorways, who knows what they hide? I am driven to unlock the secrets inside They are patterned with gold like some lost work from Kells And I hear as I touch them the sweet sound of bells All gilded and blue like impossible skies Across which improbable cherubim fly Three doorways, three catches, three windows behind Three moments to wonder at what I might find Brass candlestick, lamplight, white roses, red wine? The sweet scent of apples, the reason for rhyme? Warm velvet, sharp satin, the bitterest silk Which cup holds the poison, which holds only milk? And here is the child who keeps White Rabbit time By the smallest of sundials on a daisychain line In his bright waist-coat (want-coat) whose pockets are lined With half-eaten minutes, and the fabric of time Sinistra and dextra stand open and plain I have glimpsed without harm what the lesser contain Yet the third and the largest is cold to my grasp And I hear no sweet bells as I unlock the clasp I look to my left before opening the door The poison is spilt; petals lay on the floor The candle goes out but in one glance I see That the body which drank and fell lifeless is me I look to my right but the child has fled The sun has gone in and the sky is blood red The daisies lie closed amid dead rotting cores Of minutes whose like I may soon have no more I chill at the image and tremble in shock My hand falls away from the door’s golden lock I reach for the lesser and close them as well And hear as I do so, the sweet sound of bells Ever and always the sweet sound of bells…