And my father,
sallowed by the age of habit,
watches the last rays die in flying embers
and tries to catch them in falling words
as do I.
feet hooking rock, I clamber as I must have done
many rituals ago, in this land as
familiar as the first plucked mushrooms
of October.
Red bellies float across the tidal grasses
In hidden masses
like rivers burnt into the crust of the earth.
These old paths are trodden anew,
crushed wheat under the soles of our shoes.