time steals up soft in autumn’s haze
through fallen leaves and frosted morn
no longer smiles through summer days
bears dreadful gaze of mercy shorn

scribes lines upon youth’s winsome face
and brings the ache of stiffened joint
gives halting stride and slower pace
age piled like leaves does thus anoint

yet in thine eye dwells springtide’s bloom
in ardor’s dance is lightened tread
warm voice dispels autumnal gloom
at gentle touch are decades fled

for love knows naught of count of days
let the years flow as they will
unclouded passion’s flames yet blaze
I shall be thy lover still

Mayfly
all snowy white wings
delicate fragile things
that dance and skim the summer air
hardly there
a second of modernity
to experience eternity
what if a penultimate day in May
to play and love & live
was all you had to give?

"I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead;
I lift my lids and all is born again.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

The stars go waltzing out in blue and red,
And arbitrary blackness gallops in:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I dreamed that you bewitched me into bed
And sung me moon-struck, kissed me quite insane.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

God topples from the sky, hell's fires fade:
Exit seraphim and Satan's men:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I fancied you'd return the way you said,
But I grow old and I forget your name.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

I should have loved a thunderbird instead;
At least when spring comes they roar back again.
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)"

The rose is a rose,
And was always a rose.
But the theory now goes
That the apple’s a rose,
And the pear is, and so’s
The plum, I suppose.
The dear only knows
What will next prove a rose.
You, of course, are a rose—
But were always a rose.