Barbara Cormack
Plea Bargain
Do leaves grow thin in autumn
or is it the sun’s angle (low)
that gives the elder tree
its ghost-green silver glow?
I too await December.
Will I lucent be: a brittle,
papery, silvery, elder me?
What matters metaphor or rhyme?
Answer: nowt, or precious little.
Given an old ghost’s chance,
I’d drop wordplay for making sense
with my last syllable of time.
In the unlit labyrinth of winter
lucent’s fine, but lucid’s better.
or is it the sun’s angle (low)
that gives the elder tree
its ghost-green silver glow?
I too await December.
Will I lucent be: a brittle,
papery, silvery, elder me?
What matters metaphor or rhyme?
Answer: nowt, or precious little.
Given an old ghost’s chance,
I’d drop wordplay for making sense
with my last syllable of time.
In the unlit labyrinth of winter
lucent’s fine, but lucid’s better.
Barbara Cormack
(1938-2004)
Page(s) 15
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