I heard a solitary bird
Sing over tombs
On a sunny February day.
I know gloom
And beauty
While he
Knows not mortality.
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.
I touch the gravestone
Warm from the afternoon sun.
I have come
Here alone,
Many a time
My mind
Full of rhyme.
But under the cold gravestone
There is neither sun
Nor rhyme.
As I
Grow older, I
Doze more
In my armchair.
I wonder
When and Where
I will die.
Amidst these windswept trees
I feel free
Of modernity.
For the breeze
Drowns out the noise
Of broken
Toys.
In this wood
A tree
Fall
Could end all
This modernity,
Leaving no rhyme
Behind.