'Shall we go, you and I while we can,
through the transitive nightfall of diamonds' - Grateful Dead
Wind rages again, but luckily
speeds with cold rain-spit on autumn's edge.
It would be well to damp the pages of successive days
and put an end to this late spate of fires
but that's not in the augury;
yet
neither is a heatwave,
this weekend to be
only as hot as good English summer days,
perfect for an outdoor Romeo and Juliet.
March, marching on, drags me with it
reluctantly toward the margin of my visit,
towards giant white goods that fly,
those who have been funneled through security
(via countries that care where Mecca is
and, in case of religious insecurity
indicate with compass on the media screen),
stuff 'em with crap pap 'sustenance',
cramp 'em up to endure the screaming tedium
and wracked fatigue -
I know,
with all the best intentions in the world,
and safety uppermost for all, economy
and platinum,
clack me back down Manchester tracks
to Crewe, marveling en route at the prevalence
of two-story buildings, the casual
crust of historic centuries, packed in
streets' twisting narrows,
bristling with spires,
without you again, to breathe a curtailed rhythm,
accommodating sighs,
in a foolish country on catastrophe's rim,
in dark evenings and narrow arcs of days,*
laboring for spring's diastole,
with blackthorn's white tryst,
living on the premise of the blackbird's
bill in dusk blues
glittering spillage
of transitive diamonds.
.............................
*That IS a bit of a whinge, I realize, as the clocks go forwards only a few days after my return and the evenings will lighten considerably.
