Park Poem

From the first shock of leaves their alliance

with love, how is it ?

Pages we write and tear

Someone in a swagger coat sits and waits on a hill

It is not spring, may-

be it is never spring

maybe it is the hurt end of summer

the first tender automn air

fall’s first cool rain over the park

and these people walking thru it

the girl thinking :

                                   life is these pronouns

the man : to ask / to respond / to accept

                                   bird-life     .    reindeer-death

                                   Life is all verbs, vowels and verbs

They both get wet

                                   If it is love, it is to make

                                   love, or let be

                                   "To create the situation / is love

                                                               and to avoid it, this is also

                                   Love"

as any care or awareness, any

other awareness might might

                                   have been

                                   but is now

hot flesh

socking it into hot flesh

until reindeer-life / bird-death

You are running, see?

you are running down slope across this field

I am running too

to catch you round

                                   This rain is yours

                                   it falls on us

                                   we fall on one another

Belong to the moon

we do not see

                                   It is wet and cool

                                   bruises our skin

                                   might have been

                                   care and avoidance

                                   but we run     .    run

to prepare

love later

(Paul Blackburn.)