Tuesday 28 April 2020

November Lime Tree

   This misted November morn
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 brown
Transform 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