With your face

 

Evening soft Autumn light;

the year’s foliage 

becoming humus,

new soil;

smell of decomposition: 

mossy,

next year's fertility;

you standing,

foot on shovel, king of ridges;

colour of ripeness 

heading towards rot;

unknown then

your lungs discolouring,

hardening

as Winter hardens.

Today, standing

in  dank November

preparing the soil

for next year's growth

with your face

but older now

than you ever were,

thinner;

watching the  years pass

in  tides of  growth:

the relentless march

of seasons pulling

me after you;

seeing the soil

as home.

A Fine Intelligence

 

His mind sparks explosions in four cylinders, maybe six;

pistons rise and fall, connecting rods turn the crankshaft,

clutch flywheel disengaged a moment, gears shifted and

torque in the wheels altered. His engine purrs; he mulls 

turbo with or without variable compression, and always 

finds that quadratic equations and poetry hinder performance.

Hard Labour

 

Never been so aware of the lungs as bellows;

how basic it becomes when, in dying,

one is reduced to breathing and we are

watching each breath

like you are lifting shovel-fulls

and so alone in the effort 

and we so useless.