While rain lashes down

Feet sink in the quaggy mire

Water getting higher

I am broken bones

As I fall I turn to loam

I remain a home

Frost grips like a vice

Steel is forged from fire and ice

Fear and pride both spliced

In the borderlands

Last of the summer decays

Gold to silver grey

Each thread twists and loops

Hoops embrace frenetic wings

Lines mesh and lives move

I am moil and dirt

The mould and the claggy curse

I am soil and earth

Last drops of summer

Seep into bulbous apples

Then rot in the grass

Green to gold to grey

We all return to the clay

Life will find a way

Whether I fly or

fight the weather, together

We tie the tether

My seal is on fire

Moving thickly though the mire

Bogged down and dire

Dawn, day, dusk, darkness

Morn, meridian, murk, moon

Ning, noon, neep and night

Restless we stagger

Leaves litter the haggard fields

Birds flee, badgers hide

I will never reach

The heights to which you can soar

Should I just curl up?

Is this a land glitch?

Did I stumble in a ditch?

Did you miss a stitch?

White wash clouds close in

Cocooning us in warm shells

How will you emerge?

Growing doesn’t last

Blowing in the summer wind

Throwing in the towel

Tangled in the thorns

Between briar and bramble

Uncomfortable truth

Falling in the cracks

Of irrationality

Lost in a minefield

Keep perfectly still

Don’t speak, don’t breathe, don’t look up

Stay invisible

Autumn’s ocre hues

Graduate their way to grey

I absorb them all