Echoes Remain for Ever - Anne Clark

Autumn leaves that collect weight in the ashes of Summer

Are cracked and broken by my intruding step

Foreign thoughts that invade my questioning

Of death’s cold cold waiting

No bait will deter the ancient stalker

Whose colour I’m not sure of

Who’s walked between this park

And with icy fingers prepared this morbid corridor of bracken

To take my steps closer there all the time

Then your fingers — hard and comforting

Write softly through my hair

All that we’re afraid of in each other

All that may die between us without death to take the blame

To play games so unprepared

To dance round fires unguarded

Tears become blood of sorrow

And my pulse keeps time so badly with the tune you play to me

My steps down streets that remain unchanged but change so many

Will just vanish like yesterday

Don’t think dark thoughts you tell me

Yet all our fate waits prepared in darkness

And my hand will fumble for the door

Whose handle is too high for me

Whose wood is from those mighty trees

The trees that lay down their leaves so recklessly

My light remains flickering in Autumn

And musky smoke from blazing bonfires

Will rise like incense from the funeral pyre

In preparation