A tiny bird is perching on a prickly bush.
It sings with all lust, displaying brilliant colours
And flies off. One tree moves slow in the evening’s dying eye
And the sea pauses as if to catch its breath.
All day the mountain had stood still and now at dusk
It basks under the full orange moon. I walk
Across the grass and sand. All ways are new and newer, yet.
Unknown stars look down.
The flower-filled bough, now bereft of singing bird
Traces itself in the dark. Everything vanishes
Only to reappear through day then night then day,
A seemingly endless ritual, like relationships
That mold and seize the heart unaware
Only to vanish. Inversely proportional to the aging heart.
The final isolation is
Always never foreknown
Like the sapling is parted from the seed, the fruit from the stem,
The tree from its roots, the earth from the sky.
Like after the rain.

Commonwealth Literature Journal, After The Rain, Final Isolation, Dead Leaves, Two Boats, Full Orange Moon.