Autumn
When you have done
All your hours but one
There is
A sudden spell of melancholy
Not like the soreness of a wound
Its reason compelling as a black stain
On a white horizon.
This is a nagging thing,
You know not from whence it came;
Its pain deeper because it yields no answers
Like the circular logic of grief:
Why am I grieving?
Because I have lost.
There,
You find the sore spot
Where poignancy of sadness,
You guard with more tenderness
Than your secrets
Is a kind of beauty,
And the aching of loss
Is as lovely as the splashes of orange
On the horizon of a sky giving in
To a setting sun.
But show me that smile
That upwards turning, those creases,
That something within that makes me dance without,
Show me the glow of sunlight
That spreads across your face like a moment,
Because there is where nothing matters,
Except this.
