Ghosts of Autumn

One day, if you're lucky,

you may, as I am now,

approach Autumn in your Autumnal years

and feel its full blown beauty as

if for its first time.

And, feeling like part of

some long novel; a protagonist of

some kind,  though,

not

not the only one.

And glad not to be because

All the mists who appear like ghosts

you know are not forgotten, lost or lonely,

They are remembered and live amongst us,

Walking gently, kindly to remind us.

Breakfast in the Rain

He's a face in the wilderness,

She's a beautiful tree,

He's been painted by genius,

She was captured with love;

One painting,

One photograph,

Hanging in different rooms,

Connected by an untold story.

But there's more;

Go a bit further down the corridor,

you'll find the photographic portrait gallery.

Faces upon faces, rows of people,

Some look familiar,

All look so the longer we look at them.







Cut to a hotel restaurant.


The rain is pouring down the old bay windows,

Framed by the Wisteria's pendulous lavender racemes,

The table set for two,

The curved walnut backs of the Queen Anne chairs

polished, their golden yellow cushions plump,

their legs low and spread wide to accommodate your crossed ankles.

You can see yourself now,

Sitting, watching the rain, waiting.

You take your cup and sip,

The tea is delicate,

It's fragrance lost in your dreaming,

As you watch the rain falling.

Love is

We must all think about it because it's so much a part of us.

I think we either seek it or avoid it, possibly oscillating between the two states throughout our life.

We sometimes wonder if it's real, even when we think we feel it.

We can worry it's going to dissolve into thin air even when we are sure we feel it.

It can be as if we feel unqualified, undeserving, distrustful of this thing itself,

As if love is the whimsy,

A floating, filigree, flimsy flittering, vacillant sceptic.

We project all our doubts and objections upon it.

You make us weak ! we wail. I hate you ! Go away and hide yourself under this cloak of cynicism.


But I know it now.

That is, I know it for myself,

Which is, after all, the only way we can know things.

It is the sum of all my life,

It's contained in a well that I can draw from.

The well replenishes itself, however much I draw;

And I can elaborate and extemporise on this image and metaphor,

But I know the understanding at its core is true,

And the mistake can only arise from my inability to communicate it

to you.