when I say I'm shallow I mean thy mind can I read as if it were an open book I mean that the hour of my father's death shall I stand resolute and without apprehension for I know in my heart that all creatures are made to bear witness to cause I mean that a house with four bedrooms holds four too many for my needs and a garden of peonies is but wasted on my indurate heart when I say I'm shallow I mean that all that seems within is without and all that is taken as presence is merely the contrivance of a universe whose rules predicate its existence on the perpetuance of thy illusion thus I spake and said unto thee that I may well be the shallowest person you should ever meet by which I meant that wood in motion is not of the living. that only a faerie can change such things. that my heart aches for thy magic. that aching is all I know in this lyf. that pain of the deepest sort is as shallow as a brackish mere that promises an abyss yet triumphantly disillusions us who dreamt of drowning when I say shallow I mean... forgive me my lady but I mean so very many things as would fill the handsome pages of the folio of thy patience, and thus must I remain unexplained, opaque and a fool before thy grace [24-I-2014]