We know too much; I see in all
this autumn but a smoking shawl
shrouding a silent tree, a grey
sky leaching sorrow as the day
draws up its knees to face the
wall.
Drear taste of bitterness, of
gall,
hangs on the air; I stir earth’s
pall
of blood-burned leaves, attempt to play -
we know too much -
with death; I hear the mocking
call
of rooks that drift like ash, that
fall.
The images insist; they stray
from guilt-hagged depths; what can I say
of innocence, how mend the caul?
We know too much.
(October, 1988)
