Last day of the year
and old man’s beard
smothers the
hedgerow
like the fresh fall of snow
we haven’t had
this winter. No flowers but the
red tips of hips and
haws
perched in between
the palest green
lichen creeping
along blackthorn.
The damp creeps too,
up from the earth
to meet grey sky
descending
like a bird’s song across the long
wet end of the year.
Heavy the days at this slow time,
ponderous the rhyme
of bells which
mark the turning
point; the pendulum swing,
the ring of
something new.
Poised as we are, between now
and then, what can
we know,
but that we are
cradled,
kept; the ground true,
the green shoot poking
through.
31st December 2011
