Plum Tree Pale

Won’t you come with me to plum tree pale
And dust off your legs in the dried-up fields
And lie under the blue sky -a wan canopy
As we mull over the summer months that turned to dust in plum tree pale

Won’t you sit with me in plum tree pale
And lean back lazily on a muddy river shore
That lies lower this summer as we sit and we sing
In the throbbing light of a waning sun down in plum tree pale

Won’t you stroll with me in plum tree pale
And pulp the yellowing grass like soft glass shattered under heavy feet
Let us turn our heads to the sky and record dead time
As it flickers in our eyes in plum tree pale

Let us pluck weeds like feathers from a tired ground
And twirl hairy reeds in our fingers in the aching half-light
Or count up the brooding caterpillars as they shuffle across the dying earth
And melt away into the grass and we become bodyless voices
Shadows cast thick on tree trunks drifting in the warm breeze away into the night

In the dark the ground goes cold and so we walk away
And whisper ‘goodbye’ to the tender light
Of plum tree pale.