The neon-freckled
city late at night
Is veined with amber avenues of light.
One by one the tower windows yawning
Shutter their tones of gold and glinting white.
A mist collecting
soot flakes from the air
Smudges in ginger gloom the thorofare,
Where, in the starlit hours of early morning
I pass through sleeping streets, alone. To where?
She is weaving
her gossamer web.
Spring birdsong wakes the sleepers
In the chambers of past and to come.
In the warmth of the sun
White blossoms open on silence.
One summer
song calls one fruit to ripen.
One blind hand groping, lifts the fruit
Lets fall the golden husk.
From its
decaying fragments falls a powder,
The scent of change.
The ripening
warmth withdraws.
Now she is knitting her winter shawl.
The owl’s hushed cry is carried on the air;
Comfort and care, and sweet loving nights.
But promises are unfulfilled.
The yellow leaves decay.
Scent fails
on frosty nights.
Winter fills ditch and stream.
With blood she washes out
The shreds of her despair.
Sleeping
under the melting snowdrifts
She is visited by dreams.
Freda
Davis 2009 |
