Wistful Waking

I watch nostalgia surface, see it bite
at the sunrise that relieves the harvest moon.
This perfect weather – bright light day and night –
should be enough, but is not, to festoon
my autumn with the joys of the season:
canoeing, hiking, catching leaves that fall
like puzzle pieces teasing at my reason.
Why having much can I not have it all?
The past calls loudly but not using words.
I revisit places I have never been.
More of me than my eye pursues the birds
that gyre around the great church spire and then
flit out of sight, return once, and are gone
into the shade nostalgic thoughts bring on.

September Siesta

I lounge alone on Peter’s patio
that frames the gathering grey clouds storming past
between high-hanging, stock-still clouds of white
and me boxed here against the coming night.
The sun scores silhouettes on banks of white
and writes initials on the crescent moon.
The moon, self-centred from this patio,
backlights high-flying swallows as they flow
and flip, appearing swiftly from stage left
to exit right as cannon fire that soars
up moonwards. Downstage, modern feasting Moors
and Christians re-enact their ancient wars.