Everything waits. The lime trees in the park
never more solitary. A moon parabola’s
its passage, its slow arc,
its high full toss; by the end of night
hits the midwicket centre of the silhouetted trees,
wedged in the blackened branches.
In life, like the moon, we are all one day bowled back to earth.
Lean light days. Enough stillness to sense the future
beyond this future; hours that will live (and die)
beyond these hours. But for the prancing magpies,
solitary crows, the park has shut up shop,
people pass through quickly as though unwelcome.
The lime trees are obstinate, indifferent, taut as tuning forks.
The days lose themselves easily as lost change.
The blood slows and the pond stagnates.
Brackish, not a mirror, matt black,
a tub of autumn’s tar. The rain drifts in,
finds every little hollow, every entry place.
Short on words, we grow quieter, more secretive,
like the water, seeking and searching,
we meet as underground streams.
