In the smog of a half-burnt autumn day
When the shops were crowded, the buses late,I passed a park and looked in at the gate –
The grass was deflated, trying to pray,
And the trees had nothing to say.
I walked through the gloom with its sooty taste
And thought of the ageing blood in my head,The caste-off past and friends now dead,
The moral commitments made in haste,
The by-ways and the waste.
I watched as the final rose leaves fell
And lay in the ashes like holy men;A blackbird scuttled away to its hen
And evening rang like a darkening bell
Or an iron lid on a well.
I went back to the gate at the end of day
And passed in the mist a sudden man;I saw only his back, his shoulders’ span,
But knew what it was he had to say –
And I had found my way.
