stay - don’t go

stay - don’t go

there’s a half of a half of a half

of a degree of sadness

in the cooling of a warm breeze 

of a september afternoon in a

garden forgetting the time of year 

for how can the cat roll on the warmth

of a day like any other summer day

except for half of a half of a half

of a degree of sadness

not for the fat spider eggshell colour 

spinning the caught day

under the garden table  or

the grass cut short and still

some runner beans on the pole  or

some tomatoes in their salad sun

and apples falling with the pears

the daisies yellow red and yellow  or

the sedum lunching with the bees

wasp wind up an down the upside

of a day or two past summer’s best

and yet i say to a butterfly stay

just a teeny weeny bit longer if

it pleases you as it does me

to stay the execution of the poppies 

that rattle in surmise that next year lies

the other side of winter’s long-forgotten 

ways and ways and ways we

forget that today’s today and all the way

and yet this hint of sadness refuses to abate

for it is late

in the day this non-summer day

as if it were halted in the coffee steam

in a dream a warm dream

tell me that it is not so 

that i am mistaken

but like all my remembered autumns

it always started this way

and refused to stop    stop

until the origami folded

as a pressed leaf in my book of life

no don’t say it is not so

for i can feel in in in my bones

one inch deeper into my grave

for that’s the way it is

half of a half of a half

of a degree of sadness

in a warm smile