Each winter, they shrink to a rumour.
For years, only a low moan
that might have been wind blowing
across the chimney pots,
or a creak and whine
that could have been the rusting gate,
swinging wide just this side of sleep.
But once, half a mile from home
and surprised by the silent swoop
of night, we flushed a flurry
of autumn colour in the lane
and were almost brushed by a breath
of wings, that hardened and darkened
amid the hawthorn thicket, became
a branch tipped by embers
burning up the light’s last slivers.
Freed from earth’s embrace, with every star
a crucible to kindle from,
so might our eyes fire.
So might we flame on.
Matt Merritt, 2011