<For Lee>
A north wind blows red and purple at the end of autumn.
Wine-lights of dusk
Course in drugged vein of leaves.
Beyond August,
You said “half our lives are over”,
And it was good…
Now, garnet processions of hills
Crowd around a silvered silk of morning,
And burnt-out pyres of stars smolder recitatives
of your ash and light.
Water does not carve a history through old rock.
Water and rock are mostly reflections of each other’s stillness.
Seasons only spin in the pale moment,
Where all are neither here, nor not-here —
Without future or past – runes of old stars burning out forever.
At your funeral,
In the flickered cold of the gathered afternoon,
I knew you were no more (nor no less) present
Than any of the rest of us.