Farewell Poem
By Dominic Allard
When I see you again
Summer will be passing,
Spring a vague memory.
Days will have worn our thoughts
Into memories.
Winter will be closer
By three months, and you
A little older. The flowers in the fields
Will be ageing then;
And the woods will be full
Of Summer's creations.
Lovers will be found there
Among the mingling leaves
That cover the pathways
For Love's secrets. So when Spring is over,
And Summer is passing,
I will see you once more
In a season of beauty;
Then Autumn can rob us
Of all Summer's meaning,
But we can be happy
Together again.
The Dying Fire Summer - the dying fire in Autumn's hearth -
Dies for a day, then splutters another
Last flame out of the season's aftermath. Loose leaves of red and brown absorb the heat,
And try to cling another day for warmth,
But burn into the grass and scald the street. Then we smell the smoke that curls and turns
Its way from gardens as the burnt-out leaves
Are raked together and their brownness burns.
Addressed to Autumn Save us a leaf or a stalk
Of corn, to epitomise
Summer months of country talk;
That we, looking to the leaf,
May recall Summer's coming,
And once again feel the leaves
Above us, when we, roaming
Freely, followed the foot-paths
To our lonely haunts. Please save
For us the stalk to recall
The embryo of the love we have,
That we might remember days
Of Summer love. So many
Memories surround the Summer,
And very few - if any -
Survive Winter's duration,
And never live another year.
Save these vestiges of Summer
For when the Winter is here.
Clearance Area
Who can say now
That anything was here
Other than open land
Used only by stray dogs
And children breaking bottles on stones?
What proof is left
Of a hundred years
Of coming and going?
What of the many days
That came and went here,
Birth and death
Scattered among them? How do you remember it now?
As laughter overheard from a room
As you passed an open window?
As a dark Street where outlines
Briefly became people under street lights?
Or you may remember children
Singing out of sight across the school yard.
Perhaps you were the laughing person,
Or the face glimpsed at night.
You may have been the child whose voice
Found its way out of the hall
And touched an old person's heart. Weeds, stray dogs and children
Waited patiently for them to leave.
The weed beneath;
The dog and child
Unborn inside.
The Ruins
The windows are shattered like crying eyes,
The garden choked with over-grown sadness.
We enter the broken gate and follow
The path-way to the open door. Gone now
The laughter and quiet moment, forgotten
The tearful-time and child-like happiness.
Where have they gone? Buried under the weed?
Covered by the fallen slate or chimney pot? A passage-way, dampened by recent rain,
Tells us of a room which begs us enter
Into its shade, out of the scorching sun.
Children have been here playing adult roles,
A box their table, bricks and slates their chairs.
You say "All the stories that these walls could tell
Must stay unspoken in this silent room,
And we can only guess what happened here". The fire-place hints at family groups, gathered,
Hungry for warmth, hidden from the outside frost;
The windows, glassless, once knew the seasons,
Autumn's draught and Winter's perching snow.
Now patient rain has laughed in with revenge.
A stairway takes our eyes to upstairs rooms,
Where further stories wait to be untold.
We could climb the steps back to that time,
But then decide enough has been disturbed. Out in our Summer again, we follow
The track away towards the waiting car
And homeward to our own unfinished rooms.
Return Winter runs colourless,
A black and white film
Bringing a different world
Without any blues, greens,
Or reds
-Only drained holes where colours used to be.
I remember how they went -
Green into yellow into brown
Into dust.
Now seems the peak of that slow death. A landscape full of frozen forms
That we knew as trees;
Wandering lines of ice
Which were once called streams.
No subtle changes here -
Only sharp contrasts.
Empty branches blacked on a factory wall
By a piercing sun that makes us
Half-close our eyes even though
The frost freezes our hands and ears. Then the soil stirs.
Soundlessly the colours return,
Afraid almost to let us hear
Them coming in.
No turning key, falling latch,
Or foot-step in the passage-way.
And we wake one morning to find tiny shoots
Sprinkled by an unseen hand
From front garden
To railway siding. From then
Each day colours our Summer
A little more until
We become foolish enough
To forget the Winter,
And it takes a late frost
To remind us
That we are still standing
Less than arm's length
From that icy touch.
Us We were the centre - once;
Whatever happened, happened around us,
And for us, stars moved about us,
And there was no need to question because
The answers were already known, written
For ourselves by us. Stars burned and moons turned
In circles which were spun
Around the hub of our human wheel.
We were held cosy, warmly assured
That this life held together
The spokes of our turning universe. But now we are frightened;
Light-travel has made a history of the sky,
And Godless we are pointless.
Now we can see where we are standing,
Far distant from the main river -
An un-mapped back water eddy.
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