RAUCOUS

 

Two Crows try to mate in the Churchyard,

Crying raucous of life midst the dead,

Bright flowers thrust up from corruption,

Some sign that the winter has fled.

 

I like it, this turn of the season,

Some season of hope to renew,

My winters despair has its ending,

The promise life made me comes true.

 

I suppose I am old, I should know it,

Perhaps just too old to feel young,

But the young wine is still there for drinking,

And the new songs are yet to be sung.

 

So what if I’m grey and I’m creaky,

So what I no longer can run,

I’ve still got moonlight to bless me,

I’ve still got the warmth of the sun.

 

A farmer who has my acquaintance,

Said it right when he spoke of this place,

It gives you a sense of good reason,

It gives you abundance of space.

 

A space to develop your thinking,

Where the new everyday is your own,

Where you’re soaked by the rivers of nature,

Wetting wise and with wit to the bone.

 

They say that the gods have their purpose,

For me and the flowers of the field,

The reaper, the scythe in the meadow,

The season to which all must yield.

 

But they’re ploughing again on the hillside,

They are seeding the furrows with grain,

And they raise many prayers to the heavens,

For some bountiful harvest again.

 

And I who have sown for destruction,

Reaping pleasure most equal with pain,

The good that I did is the balance,

My bleach for life’s permanent stain.

 

So back to the crows in the churchyard,

Crying raucous in passion and pride,

What they have is life in abundance,

And a nature that’s never denied.

 

I am old but who cares ‘I have knowing’,

I will drink the young wine and will smile,

I am freed by life’s intoxication,

And will bide in her pleasures a while.