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I’m too old to be smooth
With a deep olive sheen
Like the bark of the neat laburnum;
Or to glitter dark green
When brusque April rain
Polishes each wart and groove;
And as for a corn-yellow head,
Soon set, soon shed,
Long gone are my days of quorum.
I’m too old to have beauty,
Cream-full and white,Like the bark of the silver birch;
Catching the light
Like a gleam on a pane,
In September dusks it does duty
Guiding labourers home
Though shadows loom
And an owl glides from its perch.
I am old and rough,
Ragged-grained and grey,Like the bark of the leaning willow;
With thin leaves all day
It dabbles a stain
In the stream, black and buff,
Groaning sore in its boughs
At the wind’s souse,
Longing for the earth’s pillow.
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©
October 2013