Autumn makes her cautious arrival
and with her
swift destruction.
Beings blind of simple beauty
crush the forest
under great slabs of cold stone.
Faeries flee to unknown depths
and cold blue-black places.
Pixies dash for safety.
All seek refuge elsewhere.
*
Ice days arrive and
I fear the desolation of clover groves
will remain unblessed with freshness.
I flee and seek refuge
elsewhere
as the pixies have.
*
And in the stagnant air of winter
when sadness
and longing for companionship is most
and past ages and warmth seem eternally exiled
I return to the desolation of the clover forests
with a silence and a cloak around me.
Wishing for a hint of what was.
*
Among the slabs
I see new fresh
leaves of three.
New trees grow
in tiny huddled green ponds
peering out at the land.
Among the brown is green
and in the stillness of winter’s eve
I see icy sunlight
and even sharper shade.
But in the shadows
peers a hope of forests
when the ponds will join.
The faeries will come
and the pixies and dwarves.
All join in the rebirth.
*
And my mind will once more
have a place to slumber
unhurried.
I will hear the distant water and play
with the little ones
in the cool
green shadows
under the four-leaved trees
in summer’s heat.