The thin-top lime has blazed with fire,
Summer’s sea-green swells have shorn
To scanting leaves upon a pyre.
Such burnt-gold radiance
And
toffee hues of red and brownTransform the yellow salience
And last-gasp green across its crown.
The grey mist drifts in shrouds
And
damps the bole and fallen leaves,A robin sings with sharps and louds
Then shakes its wet-spot wings like sleeves.
Such silence, nothing stirs;
My
breath like worlds floats mist in mist;A drip of drops taps on the furze
As dew glides from a leaf’s dead twist.
What tart smell of decay! –
Of
rotting boughs and frost-strung earth;This lime will fling its leaves away
And blackly suffer winter’s mirth.
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©
November 2015