An elderly clerk raised the white flag, at half-mast
he stopped, and the steady wind showed us a quote;
"I apologise."
And O how peacefully he asked us to leave,
he needs some spare time with his dead wife.
He may be a murderer at the age of seventy,
yet we left him in peace, it was enough to see him cry.

Amid the lilac stands fronting,
solitary, passing each side of the lanes,

nocturnally, withdrawn and with itself, and the flambeaus of the night, doused and hidden in the center of the farmyard, yet winding the sunbeam´s shelters too dry. With its halo draped in black, the distance in oneself and others, others who dwell under hundreds of knurls and a sprig of ever-altering moon, uprising violets uprooted and eradicated slowly, slantingly they grew and now heading inwards, in the midst of here and there, unseen orchards and unmade bouquets, sad orbs dropt nowhere and everywhere in the night, alone and never to be enfolded; concluded and gone.

Dim you are,
our Inferior,
mews of this lot,
Death´s outlet song.

Stars tarrying too high and distant yet patiently over the lough, tallying the sky and flooding the night, with rosy hermit birds circling over us and those who were, fainting dark of swarthy victorious psalmody swivel onwards and finally leaves the scene, never to be seen by tomorrow or future screens.

O southern Death, sailing the heaven,
with loaded arms I will cover you,
by early lilies and dandelions I circumfuse you.
Yes, O southern Death, indeed they surround and jail,
here and there they immure, now you are aware.

The coming eve, enveloping man and land, over the homesteads and prospective cities, oncoming business of enrapture and tall public buildings, where pewees are bat-eyed and swarm without luminous days. Where the grass is plastic and dapple-gray, and where impound freedom exists. It´s a loud inhuman song, where everything goes. And the palings alongside the walkways, seemingly followed up with houses alway by our side, dissatisfied I must say.

My child,
you should hang on.
The dawn paces early
and soon will reach a fall.
This wondrous singer,
the one you hear;
this is not a dreamland,
hush, don´t be scared.

And for a mile and mile the carol continues, and its charms rapt me with aerial silver faces of the character. Even though with all my poems I cannot describe the moment of this, these tumbling notes of flow and wilderness of this gnu escaping from its nature, the fife of this airy nature, its outback and itself, the lilac is the face. I´m the child, I´m the young listener, learning how life leaves us unimpressed. Pristine love is you and me, how we distance ourselves; where should we seek?

(“Skies are blue,
me and you
should hold on.”)

Now while I sat in the day, I saw the many-moving wheels, my comrades in the evening and the bashful singer picking out in the background, the shy she-bird and its groom waltzing atop of the ghostly pines, the dimness tonight is soothing, serenely arriving towards a thoughtful dawn. Ascend! Ascend! Ascend! Come to us universally, high-spread love and life. But suddenly, I remembered, this was tonight only. After a few drink I stood up, dances for thee I propose, tonight we dance. Tomorrow we remain our musing.

From the well-closed doors,
the blackest nest enshrining your heartlands,
Whist! Noiselessly come forward, milady,
rush O softly and still.
Let this love be,
and this time to be whole,
not drunken nor with vacuous soul.
Undeceive the locks, tenderly,
strong is the hold on love.
O how the hearths await in a silent form,
for us, ever patiently.

And the ever-returning forenoon invites us, ever-returning mourn and shroud, a shade of raindrops abreast, crossing a land and land, smallholdings and provinces, by the tall-growing lilac-bushes the tearful woe of the night sighs, mice parades and debris flirts with a root, from gray turning black, Death, my knowledge of you is clear and sane. But for a moment I linger, for the lustrous flashback detains me, this happened a many year ago. Before a childhood long gone, the coffin had a name. Bristol, you the city of lost, dozy crows on lightposts and pinnace of limited wars. Your name has been written over and over again, and this passé clock is still ticking.

The yield of the downcast shall come presently, the king-bird warbles whole-heartedly along with sea-winds blown from the east and west. Death, come forward! Come and play with me, all of us and the rest!

(Till late morn the farmers agonise with pride, once they were six hundred but now only five.)

The great stars are now the little ones, the minute dusk shrinks while the ravening clouds devour all, all beauty and sorrow, all granges and havens, all children and old, render down all open houses, all chapels were burnt; the syndrome whole.

This verse is for you,
emissary.

Morrow the night for us,
graciously.