Love affair
there is
glass in the window
clean enough
to see
the white
grey sky
4 panes
segment
the branches
of an outside tree
it is the end of autumn
the same tree
the same
the same
white grey
fluid
it is
another autumn
the outside tree
still quartered
remains
a complicated shape
Sedimentary
(some indication of language from 5,500 BC) fossil footprints found on the Gwent levels
Mesolithic marks
that once
were muddy traces
now revealed
by the storms tongue
how
three
crossed
these flats
their footfalls
felt like fingers
floundering
for fish
one man
his imprint
deeper on the left
carries something long
forgotten
his son
my son’s age
scampers through
the edge of a wetland
the same but unlike ours
and sometime
in this distant passing
they stopped
to sound
to gather
in footprints
some words
that must have been
much greater than a grunt
we find
there’s something here
of language
that’s borne
by wind
by tide
by some chance to live
perhaps to die
a little
a w a y
from town
tacked out
for the rock
or the hard place
I sometimes cross like souls
and talk
most
leave words
imprinted on my mind
in town it’s different
in town
we have
advanced
to the dark age
a composite tongue
distilled from celluloid
where any conversation
seems minute
too shallow to sip liquid
from a gathering of small rain
branches
greening
bear
the dead
leaves
still
to fall
as moving
others
give
dry sound
the day
sharp
hill tops
plain
unspoken
the horse
in thin air
shines
here the end
life
a ridge
the tree line
the very act
of looking down
up