Seasons and Nature

February | Hyacinths | May Morning | New Springtime | The Sting | Cherry Blossom | Golden | Poem and Roses | Morning Light 1 | Morning Light 2 | It Rained That Evening | Reverie | Bird Flight | Moving the Horses | An Oak Tree | Regeneration

It Rained That Evening.

The lane behind the gardens is trenched with mud,
water dripping from the elders, the laurel leaves
washed clean. There are long lawns behind the walls
glimpsed through the bars of gates through which I peer,
my hands come away smelling of rust and wood.
I see borders spiked with seed heads in the wake of winter,
a bed of late growing cabbage stripped by fat pigeons,
black puddles in the earth where the soil has sunk.
At one gate I stand and stare and wait, and wait.
Rain drips down my neck and my drenched hair
plasters itself like wet flannels across my face.
My fingers are white with cold, and my feet
numb, heavy, my boots sodden.

Now the evening is washed out charcoal grey.
This is the time I may see your light switched on
and even watch you, a glimpse, before your hand
goes to the window and draws the curtains.
I know, because once I was there, in that room,
that room which is your study, your secret place
where always at this time you do your work,
you form and shape your dreaming into poems.
but nevermore for me, I know that now.
as far as you’re concerned I’ve sailed too near the wind,
I’ve burnt my boats, I’ve crossed the Rubicon,
And you will not forgive.

The light goes on, the soft, pale amber light,
and you are there, as beautiful as golden dawns
as lovely as an azure blue calm sea, I watch
your swaying, slim and languid silhouette.
At once, another figure moves into the light,
strong, tall and bold. I watch his arms enfold you,
he reaches out and pulls the curtains closed.
I sink down into the mud and mire and wet,
adding my spilling tears.