On a day that was shaped a little different,
I was talking to two specs of star-stuff.
Grief was staring at me from her chair in the
corner. I asked them,
        What comes next?
The small one, she smiled quite sadly and
said:
        The most important part,
        but you’ll have to wait and see.
        Mum’s waiting, you’d better go.

I used to think I was a sunset lover,
Constantly chasing a beautiful end
That my heart couldn’t trust another
And I’d always have to pretend

I used to think that love was like fire
And I, a moth bound to it’s flame
But true love goes beyond burning desire
Settling into embers that refuse to wane

I no longer dread for dusk to fall
Or yearn for the sun to stay
I search for solace in the darkness
Until the stars come out to play

By now I’d usually be sleeping,
Dreaming of another day
Instead the moon finds me weeping
And asks if all is okay

I tell her of the spark in your eyes
How your touch would make me melt
How I believed I’d found my twin flame
And how intensely alive I once felt

But you can’t fight fire with fire
And I know this because I’ve tried
It’s not worth the bridges burnt
Or all the scars we try to hide

She listens quietly, glowing with empathy
And for a moment I think it might rain
But then she whispers to me softly;
Tomorrow you will begin again.

Blowing leaves around my ankles
Burning colour in the trees
You are my autumn
Long light crossed with branches
Lights your limbs
A pace behind
Your mellow loftiness
Haunts my walks
At the nearing end of day
I am full of woodsmoke fear
Changing seasons, churning motes
Unknown as the dread-dark conker
Cracking underfoot

You are happiness
Gone , now
An empty bench
Gold and orange
A pace behind
Wearing that look from the station
Pity-I mistook for regret

7.11.21

I sat with another clip board, another list
welcoming those whose once small faces,
mad dashes, hot tears
and cold contempts
rattled these walls for five years

Some had beards, some hips, brio,
some adult eyes
that took two or three glances to recognise
the child still in

Almost all had smiles

Behind them, trooping colour to the tennis courts,
their summer school scions
began their own gangly rise
ad infinitum

Battered bookworms
turning a familiar turn
(always left)

For those that leave:
your threads become part of the tapestry,

a picture writ with deep love, excitement, applause,
dire fears and tiredness,

here be dragons and arrows in eyes

but despite the hamfists
of some intrusive hands,

there to see forever

Better than ****** Christmas
this six weeks that we continually justify
that stop our hands breaking,
the dying of hearts and minds

though in the middle
somewhere
when we regain our human form
sometimes storms rage a bit
and we stand, clifftop howling
at an unknown moon

on return we’ll have lost friends, loves,
yet be reborn to care, to teach,
to take the slings and arrows again
from this pauper’s fortune