Clay

A loamy dusk
Two swans book-end to watch me
An owl calls across the creek
but there's too much light for haunting

In these few seconds
a tiny stringy thread
white as albumen, pushes out
A millimeter at most
Even this is felt

A poetic tongue
cold and dead as winter clay
unable to 'settle in', dealing only in absolutes:
The 34 steps to the waters edge
The 90 seconds of rainbows
through the beveled glass of the back door

I stab and scrape at the stubborn mud
on behalf of an Escallonia
Which could easily go adrift
in this sea of soddenness

Dropping in it's fisted root-ball
and stamping firm, there will be no escape
In time, it will take this garden, these fluxing
tides and the cry of curlews for granted
and get on with the business
of putting down roots