Birds on a March evening.
Such beauty and grieving
For we all must sleep,.
Sometimes I almost weep
For birds in the evening
Will sing on
When I am gone.
Yet this night
I shall take delight
In evening birds.
For the graveyard plot
Has no song.
February is slipping away.
It is easy to say
I will act tomorrow,
But why not act today?
For each moment I borrow
And Time’s unyielding knife
Ends all joy and strife.
And none can say
When his scythe may fall.
But it must fall
And bring all to dust.
I see scaffold on the old church .
Perhaps it is required
To hold bricks which may otherwise slip.
I have passed by graves
In the cold rain
As the great heavens above
Stood empty of love.
This scaffold may momentarily save
The church. But all
Are in thrall to dust.
I heard a solitary bird
Sing over tombs
On a sunny February day.
I know gloom
And beauty
While he
Knows not mortality.
Sometimes the fox’s bark
Pierces the dark
As our bodies meet
Under comforting sheets.
A girl’s soft kiss
And exploring hands
Can command my lust.
But your bark,
So cold and sharp
Speaks of dust.
A hyacinth’s scent last night
Brought such delight
To me as she stood,
Pure and white
In her box of wood.
Others unopened stood
In that box of wood.
They will flower and die
As will I.
I have passed tombs
In the sunshine
And in the gloom
Pondering on rhyme
And my fleeting time.
Scented with perfume
She passed the dead
Who lay entombed
In their unenvied bed
And the dead slept on
When she was gone.
We find brevity in lust
And permanence in dust.
On a cold autumn day
I find that time
Has stopped. But my clock
May be wound today.
Yet, one day
I will not
Know the day or time.
I do not fear
Another dying year
But simply pass
Along the churchyard path
Observing these fallen leaves.
Autumn does not deceive.
But lust
Does, I find
Distract the mind
From dust,
While autumn time reminds
Us that we all
As autumn leaves
Must fall.
I am not indifferent to the charms
Of a young woman’s arms.
So when your arm wound around me
Of course I was flattered
For you are much younger than me.
I have had dreams shattered
So will believe that it was merely
Out of friendly regard
That your youthful arm
Wound around me.
In the churchyard
On my way home alone
I passed by cold stones
And contrasted their charms
With your warm arms.
K Morris - Poet 