(after Rainer Maria Rilke)


River bank meadows have
all the time in the world.


Their pulse slows to a teardrop 
before any changes in weather. 


It turns to cement, turns to
salt mixed with root clumps,


for winter seeps through layers
of sunset under glass ceiling.


Our tree chopping season grows 
heavy with chalk, a burial site for


the things we once loved that
have fallen and broken in to pieces. 



© Maria Stadnicka, June 2021, Stroud.