A Ballad from the field

Unlatch these early hours, invite the wind

And the  soul journeying homeward,
To revisit what’s left and what has been.

                                                 Nina Tai ling

 In the clear stillness of dawn

when the sun is about to light his lamp,
I lift a window and inhale
what rises from the greenwood, cool and damp.
Beyond mushrooms and moss-covered stones,
the wet silk hung on reed and briar,
there is a deep sense  of longing
that did not  perish in  the wildfire.
Clothed in leather and Levi  jeans,
you drift along that distant light
leaving the ruins of  a charred  plane
tangled in sedge grass, hidden from sight.
And so I wait, to hear  footsteps break
the silence of marsh and morning air.
Even lark sparrows mute their song
and wind refuses to muss my hair
saving that task for a lover’s  hand.
I shiver near the casement’s frame,
too much dust resembles frost; and yet frost
could never blur your presence or name.