The Garden In Decay (Poetry)

A curling leaf caught in a web that’s hanging old and torn
dead flower heads long-withered — pale and dry
the empty hedge criss-crosses twigs — prays hopeless and
                                forlorn
beneath a cool indifferent autumn sky.

A silence hangs — the wind is still — there’s nothing moving here
as though a spell’s been cast on everything
that once was bright — now bleached away to greyness dull and
                                sere
the patient birches wait but no birds sing.

The world is one huge breathless ache that cannot name its pain
beneath the windowsill the snail’s asleep
while November walks the mossy path and down the dreary lane
collecting all those lives that will not keep.