Love falls easy
On the eve of circumstance
We talk of change
He tells of miners
And of minders
Protection for the decision makers
We are country boys
Of late middle age
Not yet total familiar
With our obtuse journeys
I talk of diabetes
The patience of my grandfather
As he weighed his bread
He reveals the echo of his father
Lad, chew your food
Twenty-seven times before you swallow
Today he flies to Malta (he may have flown already)
Unlikely that we will ever meet again
But it was sunshine and he told me that he was gay
The suitcase is gone
The night is gone
(Echoes here of Bukowski)
The garden is neat
The swallows petit
All is freshness and light
Where is the gone
Is it the gone of the gone before
The gone of the past
A gone that drives writers to go on
Gone to go on with compulsion
No doubt the perfume is also gone
All remnants of scent are gone
