The Evening

 The evening


The evening’s drawing in

As Autumn nears and leaves

Fall from exhausted trees

Weak from summer heat.


Nature will take refuge 

In the care of late August

When fine rain washes

Red ripening apples


The birds in Wexford make plans

To venture south in search of heat

They gather on the beaches

Weighing up the hour to leave. 


Then of a sudden they rise and wheel

Into the leaden sky

Leaving us bereft

To long nights ahead


Darkness covers land

Trees bend in stiff breezes

Lonely lights in houses twinkle

Through the cascading gloom.


The seasons make their way

Like sentries round our lives

Something old and new

Appear then slide from view.


Like fruit flies on an apple

We scramble on this planet blue

Oblivious to where we are

And to whence we wander.


Miracle of the ordinary

Sensational in the simple

Messy and sublime

Fate and chance combine.

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