Of Wind or Rain

Invisible hands bring rain
Or, without rain, brush distant grass
In curved strokes upwards
From hollow to hilltop.

In wide green waves,
Darker currents bend the seedheads,
And fade away in the field margins.

Absentia

No more naming the flood's last scattering
Nor seawood bleached to the bone by weather;
No name for spiralled veins in living wood,
None for cracked ice under new ice forming.

No more words will separate
Bud from flower or the fruit that follows;
None will call up a harvest or name its days;
None will dry a summer after rain in spring.

Missing Words for the World

Words slip away, disused.
In forgotten hollows in the hills,
Names for land or the shapes of land
Discolour and decay.

There is a silence which
Disconnects the tongue and its understanding;
Without knowledge the eyes in turn, fail.
Rain or mist, falls like ignorance.