Handed to her brief

to the usher to the clerk

to the judge – her scrap of plea

Brilliant strand

a man and a woman

bury stones

Closing in

from everywhere

faintly glowing mist

My enemy’s lawyer

with ginger cat fur

on his suit

In a dull voice

he explains the Chinese concept

“self-ablaze”

My new friend

as the day darkens

is his face young or old?

Flying with Orion

over Novosibirsk –

lights in the wilderness

The dead together

wavering in crowds

– autumn grasses

Watching a cat

decide not to jump –

little gust of grief

The foul-mouthed loner

each dawn he sees Jesus

ablaze in the East

Mice have had half the pear

while I dreamed of my parents

caught in the blitz

Stone cloister

devil and saint

softened by time

To her funeral

in the same crowded train

with the same brimming heart

Snow

bridging the needles

of rosemary

Missed it

the moment

to join in the laugh

Thin ridge-lines float

on glowing cloud –

the barking of dogs

Not a breath of breeze

crisp iced mud

and a crow caw

Farmyard flints

through the soles of my shoes

the Milky Way

Fleecy lamb

eaten away at the chest

full of rain

My big head:

the hills, the clouds

the winter sun

For the unloved

an immense night sky

creamy with stars

Beginningless kalpas of time perhaps

to the Big Bang

of this ripe nectarine

In the rose garden

a man I don’t much like

enjoying the sunshine

Summer’s end nears

now the slow bee allows

stroking of fur

stars fill the hatchway

swaying

to the smell of melon