Back from

Back from

The stream comes from an underground spring, crosses stones

To find the river, currents nowhere finding rest;

Its moors-beginning seeks no ending in the sea;

It is like a flower that never forgets to bloom.

Clouds thin like flax-threads soar above hedges lavish

With endless insects, music, blossoms, and fragrances;

A kite hangs there in flight in boundless sun-whipped space;

The dogs bark in the burbling milky-way waters.

Distant roofs glint and a village chapel bell peals;

They drink wine from the Sussex Downs that tastes of lime;

Peals of laughter vanish into the willow trees;

The road ahead reaches to the edge of the sun.

The skin of the waters flushes full with red-haze sky;

The faces smiling back from the stream are fresh with youth;

Ideals pure as elderberry panicles,

Flush with promise, youth plumbs an endless slice of time.

Birds among the leaf-loud sycamore branches call.

The fresh green-apple mist of the pouring white wine chants

A song of friends that drifts along the lucid stream;

It is the season of youth after hard spring winds.

Dancing cheeks glisten with dew on the mossed duckboards;

In the blue sky a jet trail lights up flurried white,

Igniting desire for ends-of-the-earth adventure;

A great mirage of time breaks free in their glances.

The high grass gives a lush harmony to the fence

Where the tail-flicking black mare gently rubs her neck;

Breezy butterflies taunt the sippers of flower wine;

They hoard the good-fortune hours the setting sun leaves.

Idly gazing on laughter, wine and easy chat,

The sun lingers west in vain for a place to drop;

Tears of laughter and drops of wine find stream water;

Their dreams flow along the boundaries of heaven.

Their glasses toast the jewel filigree of moon;

Too kindred now this carefree moment to scatter,

They embrace before the winds come that buffet dreams

Or memories yellow like leaf-falls in autumn.

Moonlight tumbles their shadows, branches sweep the mist,

A dew-fall light bathes the trees where crows have settled;

The wine of water and vine has been drained from glass;

The stream bears finger-tips of sip drops to the sea.

Flush-faced they sing echoing out over the stream;

They are born and die out of nowhere, but they live;

Their time was, is now, and will be till heaven’s gate.

Back from war their shadows ripen into themselves.