Lapsing in splendour to a spent, brown show;
And winter, swilled in the mouth like mouldy wine,
Grows busy with its ice-bound status quo.
Yet
heedless of the sopping, choking soil
Come
Spring the heavy-shouldered seedlings stir – Jazz up the garden like jam on the boil,
Singing in orange like a mad, punk choir.
My
dear, my dear, should you go, should you go,
What
will be left me but the blackbird’s scream;The marigolds smashed down by one cruel blow,
And dusk like anarchy along the lawns
Where some chill figure wanders with a dream
In the long, lasting, wasting day and mourns?
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© August 1983