Same Face

 

Failing light soft as Autumn leaves

falling.

The year’s foliage becoming humus,

new soil;

smell of decomposition: fresh, dank,

mossy;

preparation of next Summer’s fertility.

You standing,

foot on shovel, king of the ridges;

colour

of last apples, ripening towards rot;

who knew

that inside the lungs were discolouring,

hardening

as Winter will curtail with sheets of ice;

or that I

would stand, years on, in dank November;

with same face,

watching for the robin in the nearby hedge.