There sounds a growth where the mixed fertile seconds twitch

and the waste combines - a minute underneath the dew

where a thought reprises, seizes the day at the loftiest wake

and disguises – blue and black and silver eyes

across the wing of his jest,

a movement before completion – where  the morning rises.

 

He takes the moment to be human –

a gardener amongst the still bud be, each turn of head

respected, and the less he tends, the riper the earth delights –

a little tap here and there, a worm too lost

too shrink away, a mist held loose around his neck –

where a scarf bitten red decides.

 

He sits in court where a spade divides

and the health of the day will mind

to bring the old man to his side, bent and hoarse

and whistling through beads of sweat –

wet to the lip of the children leaves.

Heaving, on the bend of his back - what things he creases

in the crow’s brow! What things he returns to each day,

 

 

waiting upon the shoulder of retirement.