The dead can’t talk to us

tell us of their fear,

your love is waiting

at the field gate

head in hands

waiting for your voice.

You can’t help her

hold her in the night

whisper words you want

to say, you meant to say

back then that fateful day

the last day you were together.

The dead can’t speak

tell us how the light

went out

the time they’re owed:

we watch sunrise pink

over hill & dale

listen to the lonely cry

where are you now,

where are you now?

Why did you go

& leave me?

Red sky @ dawn

high V of geese

autumn tinges gold & red

the horses grow their

winter coats & the season

takes its final breath.

Night sky high as blackest soot

membrane of those distant stars

 Jupiter huge below the moon

& the milky way our path to

dusty death: & then there’s here

there’s now & how we watch

time float by. A stretch a sneeze

a stranger’s smile bequeathed

not promised till the hour

we rest our heads & follow.

Neither here nor there

up or down, shadows

haunt my days

yet bursts of sunlight

battle through the grey;

years have fled, like water

in a storm, fast flowing &

we can’t scoop them up

to live again.

‘Beauty’s wasted on the young’,

they said. In all the beds I’ve laid

my head the path has seemed so clear

till now.

An autumn shower, double rainbow

generations skip ‘n twist, the dead

stare hard.

‘I’m not this nor that’, Tibetan prayer

mocks me, & all the faces that I wore

desert me now

I’ve said before, the years have fled

like water in the storm cascading:

I cannot reach a destination.

Uncertainty & doubt have come

to call, once so clear now disbelief

taunts me.

But the robin always calls, the sunrise

in my eyes, the seasons speeding up

until I’m left with:

‘I’m not this, nor that’, or

any flavour inbetween

I’m  just a leaf blown

a perfume in the breeze

a speck of dust

as chaos reigns supreme.

N.B.

Tibetan prayer.’ Neti neti neti’