I feel I have to ask before I commit thoughts to screen -- and please be honest -- but would you be comfortable with me reviewing this? I'll probably spiral away and I'm not sure I would help at all.

Hello Sophie, good gracious and gremlins! No, this is me with my self-doubt/self-awareness going full throttle and, yes, I have had people respond in a rather energetic way to my attempts at thinking through poems. The nub is that poems generate a mass of inklings and my imagination skitters away on the surge. I know that what I think may be the opposite of helpful to someone wanting feedback -- but what I feel is genuine excitement about the world/words of the poem. I try to be straightforward but, I am told, it comes out zigzagged. If you have no objection to 'zigzagged' then i will venture away! Heck, we have met, we have the proximity of the real world connecting us! But, yes, it would be a finer thing to speak directly -- but, until WOL allows for video links we are here among the language, guessing meanings.

I'd like to know the identity of the girl who arrives in disguise -- and the man whom everyone presumes knows them, knows god: one aspect of knowing -- and it's autumn. Is the season important? I guess knowledge is a disguise -- the man's. But it's also his obstacle for knowing. Is that an aspect of tao? The lilt of the language softens the meaning: the insistance driven through the purposely uncomplicated rhyme scheme is really affecting and effective. The shock is in the mention of the train: the piece feels timeless p till then -- authentically of the past, but relevant to the present -- then it suddenly takes on an unmistakeable contemporary tone which I found troubling. It overturned my presumptions. Time is taken with the train metaphor -- it gives it a weight I can't quite reconcile with the rest of the poem. All in all the poem slips through my brain and leaves a puzzle. Nothing is entirely revealed. The mystery of the man is exchanged for the mystery of the autumnal girl. Oh it is indeed intriguing!