Keith Murray's protagonist turns a practical sacrifice into a positive experience.

The poet is based in Aberdeen and contributes periodically to this feature.

RECONCILIATION

You consider your losses and gains

and, hungry, seeing how good and fleeting life is

you unhook your valuable print from your wall,

make a trek to the pawn shop in the rain,

you need a few pounds to see you through rough times,

carrying under your arm Charles V in red armour

with his overweight hound humid and mute

in the shade of a cedar tree, framed in glass,

you survive because of this small sacrifice;

buy with loose change a book on Bede, some birdseed,

and you love the journey home in the sun

now time is precious, venerable, divine,

and birdsong fills the air.