July 26th, 2026Local Lines

A circle, complete

A man –

Like all men –

Of clay; and his world

The slow, slow kiln

From which

Now

He has emerged, complete,

His perfected, shining, final face

The one true ideogram,

The whole story

Of a life

Lived now, now, in this great

Only-ever

We all share, with all its freightage

Of before and after; that face

A poiema, a thing-made, designed

With faultless patience

By Time itself – to be

Read, witnessed, loved

By those of Time’s children

With eyes to see

A heart to feel

A spirit to comprehend the way
That such a life,

Rounded, rightly formed, ringing

Like the bell

Of endless dawns

Is, in truth,

The bowl

Of endless doing; a circle,

Completed now,

Shaped

By the masterful, knowing, giving cup

Of two aged, ageless

Loving

Hands.

For Petrus.

– Toby Sime

To the extent that he grew up at all, Toby Sime grew up in Daylesford. Neither psychology nor neuroscience can cast any further light on the shocking fact of his existence; and so we must consider it the act of a perverse and wilful God.

Local Lines features poetry by locals about local and any other matters.
Please submit poems to Bill Wootton at cottlesbreedge@gmail.com