The Rescuer to Come
The fall of the leaves of autumn
carpet our path,
making mud like blood
underfoot.
Or is it blood like mud
slipping under our boots?
The season has come
and Winter is coming.
The leaves in their millions
are falling
falling
falling,
orange, red bright as the sun,
then brown as mud.
The stark trees,
once bright with hope,
are bare now and
the sky is covered
with strafe bombers,
the perfect clouds
before you say again
that the rescuer will come,
but not before the leaves have fallen.
We look for him in the clouds
as we have for a couple of thousand years,
the rescuer who will never come,
and Winter is coming
and the leaves are trodden
to the sodden earth
and the people are pounded to the ground
waiting for the rescuer to return.
Peter Cartwright
September 2017
