Hedge weather

There was a time for saying things.

And if the words were left unsaid,
and if the paths were never taken,
maybe our green summertime
for saying things has passed.
It’s autumn now and far too late.

Pick up the scattered leaves
and we might store them, brittle, dry.
Or we could make a bonfire of them,
watch them drift to aromatic smoke.

And set them free.

(from Between the Words)

The way it is

Rain, falling on a velvet night;
moon wrapped in a shroud.
The sky poured out on
trees and empty streets:
tonight there seems no end to it.
Murmured water scatters,
soft and spitting, at the glass:
on and on, a punctuated prophecy.
Something is about to happen:
some feat of transubstantiation,
crimson ripe astringency about to burst.
I cannot walk beyond the mirror:
penetrate the labyrinth of the past.
But neither can I peel the layers
of this fragile leaf apart.
For everything is intricately joined.
You are the flip side of my coin:
that same currency involved.
The rain falls on and on
and there’s no sleep.
For this is how things are.

(from Journey)