Ice-pink-peony
against the dusk
sugar-candy
pink-frill

Endless unfurling
bow your head
heavy now

Harvest moon
mellow-magic-full
Quiet and smiling

Ritual-keeper
sheaf-reaper
time-and-scythe

Prehistoric
­gold

Lazer-red dot
seeping sideways
into dazzling lip
of
stretching smile

Growing
at every glance
to utmost beauty

I've seen you now
rolling-heavy-trundle
out of that half-barn
to stand behind the tree stumps
in your glory
in the corner of the field

There you are
orange-quiet
and warm
round-and-large

Lifting on your heavenly thread
over cuckoo-breast and brook
majestic sloe-berry hop
and
now
you're at the top
of furrowed field
bathing woodpecker into
pink-knock-bliss

Lighting wooden tables
in antique rooms
with dusty shafts
of
soul

Silent mist of Flanders
suctioned to the fields
enclosing you, old soldier
shut off from this world
and
gently moaning
from beyond the boundaries
we call human
Tranced skeleton shot through
and running dead
through poppied-blood
I saw you today, heartbroken boy
calling for your mother's touch
Through a mouthful
of
earth