Though the vacant field was peopled with the pallor of naked trees/and those piercing yellow shards warmed me toward newer poetry of Summer’s charm/the effect of the day was as amber darkening clay, the colour of pitch blood. An inter- ment of our decision to ask, the past is an empty sky worn southward and cool ravens eyes seem to watch me today insistently—Though the singing air could coax me (when I am willing) beyond an uncertain death/Of breath and gazes, our flagrant light lifts those darker shadows, sending them reeling against orange flame of edged horizons, where nothing must subsist. From The River of Swans 1996 Painting Acrylic & Oil Pastel 2023