marrying and given in marriage
wickedness breeds greater wickedness
each generation stinkier than the last
and every child born a greater evil

the scattered righteous are few and hated
overwhelmed and drowning in deep sea
sparing the unborn from sorrows and griefs
gifted with the Comforter for courage and help

time is shortened for their sake
in half a time shall they be rescued
in three days and not a week
and in a week and not a year

buds have blossomed and harvest’s not delayed
we mined the Moon and harnessed the Sun
decay’s stench unmistakable but blindly persuaded
as freedom’s necessary aroma, even sacred

the wicked disintegrate where they stand
in utter terror and panic slay one another
earth terraformed in a day without end
and buying and selling cease

They burst upwards

All around this evening

There and there and there

Trees, Trees, Trees

Smashing through soil

To a darkening sky

Limbs and fingers and hands

Trunk and twig

Coiling coronaries

Pressed to the sky’s last

Etchings

Monoliths

Earths loud art

Not solemn

Not peace filled

This evening

Trees , Trees, Trees

Explode from the earth

Like Kraken from the ocean

Belittling

Reminding us

Trees Trees Trees

Four hundred million years

Before you breathed

Trees Trees Trees

The world spins tilted
On its axis, seasons turn
Another spring time

I have this thought…

Our lives like leaves in autumn
From high branches falling
A thousand shades are waving
Through spectral light
Then a scent, of earth
A cold nose and the sight
Of a warm glow

Four floors up
The old flat we brought our son to
The balcony where the parakeets visit
The tall beech and the rolling park beyond
The dense solitude of the estate all around
Pushing its edges into the earthy common
Its woods and mulched graveyards

And I am walking there
With no thoughts of future
Kicking through undergrowth

Through copse then open ground
The contrast deepening
The strangers thinning
I turn back for warmth

Four floors up, I find you sleeping
Four floors up, and I am falling