Winter finds me stepping early out my door
onto the ancient lane where I stand
beneath the cawing of crows squabbling,
and look across the verge’s green confusion
to the blackness of the lake below
where waterside trees waiting to wake
from winter stop stand in truthful
bony nakedness observing their darkened
reflections until steady swans sailing
tremble away the glassy illusion.
Melancholic slow peat-smokey tears
paling low far hills will often wash
the earth’s weathered face with tenderness,
gently raising scents of dampened earth
and the dank lost leaves of Autumn,
and amidst this passing lasting beauty
entirely insensible of my gaze and my longing,
I will feel the impalpable ensnare my heart,
seduce my mind, and sadly know I can savour
these emotions for but a few mortal seasons.
By Anthony Wade
Anthony Wade, Irish, England-trained lawyer who worked in The Netherlands, published a first poem in 2018 and since in poetry magazines in England, Ireland, Scotland, and further afield, lives now by the sea in East Cork, Ireland, an active Midleton Writers’ Group member. Twitter @anthonywadepoet.
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