we wait and watch
like cows
lugubrious luminous eyes
wondering
and rusting tractors in their proliferant beds
quiet
absorbing
in hedgerows a bustle of birds
drenched in the need for new life
they too taste the warming of our recent chills

dark is the delver
searcher of secrets
slipping beneath
abandoned eyes
enticing morsels
from forgotten corners
to dance and weave
a performance of
hapless marionettes

unstitch old cloth with
love, lay it down for others
save the thread for you

blush
mocked grey clouds
slow to pink
beginning the quiet song
that lifts our eyes
to their opulence
our shallow breath
at one in their moment
but too soon
we close our hearts
when their song has faded
into shadow

did I know only good things
in the life I walked as a boy
striding like a milk-fed king
into the deepening woods
its gentle brooding and dank breath
seeping in my limber soul

and here I nailed my fledgling spirit
to the scabrous skin of every tree
staking a claim on these
melancholy choristers
to assert my own world
against the growing void

at the echo of
our moons wish
cold waters scurry

its plague of ripples
a long drawn breath
back into the lungs of the land

urging the freedom of its flotsam
that drag like windless kites on
a pulled sheet from the bed

this brackish pulse
held to the will of another
fulfilling a promise

we drink from half cups
sipping like birds
to keep this precious
liquor from too much loss
dipping our heads
for a drop each day
to savor its warming
on our tongues
until the day
we can swim in its rivers