Bands of cloud draw colour
To cross then curve
Then block this Winter's blue.

It is appealing, sitting by a tree
While moving air moves
If only slightly
The lane-side sleeping weeds and grass.
Above, a silent battle
As high air masses collide:
But it is still, here where I sit,
For no vehicles pass
And only hunger reminds me to move.

No pressure of Time,
No routine to know:
Only a knowledge of the bitter weather
Waiting, to come.
There will be starkness, again, in the dark
When I shivering shall curl
In all of my clothes and wait for warmth
By walking
At Dawn.
And there shall be no songs of birds
No smile:
Only a wish for warmth, a wife, a home;
For there is sadness in remembering
The sadness my selfishness caused.

But Art is in the sky, above:
Always changing
And I like a drunken man
Sway
As I drink the elixir in.
I, a moving Thought
Living suspended
Between Her twilight and what may be
My own coming Dark.

Every impression is creation
Along The Way:
I cannot die
But only change this soil-bound form
As a river from rain-cloud grown.
 

DW Myatt