Winter Fruit

                                        Under the plum trees stripped bare

                                        Lies Sarah's child

                                        Wasted late life caste down dropped –

                                        Winter fruit for spores

 

                                        Helplessly permitting the sonorous wealth

                                        Of beaten wind and cold night rain

                                        Driven further into the orchard grassy bed –

                                        Featureless crypt, an enduring rest stop

 

                                        No memory marks the hare's passing

                                        In this natural season the gates of life swing 

                                        A wholesome hope beyond infantile culture –

                                        Bells ring out across the fields