Brown-curled parchment driftings of the green lane's ancient haws
crunch beneath my boots; once again the year is dying,
and this shaded path is in transition. Those screaming swifts are now long gone
that once possessed this sky.
Quarrelsome starlings arrive to take their place, and only
the last few nervous swallows hold conversation along the wires, debating
their overdue departure. Beneath the coursing swifts of June
there had seemed so much time, too much to ever spend; but now
the north wind on my face breathes its tale of coming frosts,
and my account is overdrawn.
The farmyard beasts eye me across their muddy gate. For them
time has a different measure
and is not reflected upon. I walk on
towards the yellow smear of the disappearing sun,
leaving the swallows on their perching wires, to climb the hill path
and gaze across the hard land they will leave.
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