THE RISE AND FALL OF ALL 
29th March 2012.

The rise and fall of music, the rise and fall of wind,
the rise and fall of making love, the undulations 
of the hills that rise and fall where waterfalls spill,
the oscillations of the lake where ripples touch the sky 
and shake the starlight out in day, to glitter there 
beside the bay on sandy stretches filled with knobbly 
logs, swayed to shapes of soft smooth curves, 
carbuncle toadstools on the trees, like aunts 
and uncles rocking, rising falling on their walking sticks,  

wild winds rising falling, sighing, moaning 
through the houses polishing the bricks,
the road has risen, fallen in the frosts, the sound, 
a breeze that causes reeds to bend, as do the sparrows 
little weights where seeds hang on the ends,
the sudden rush of noise from traffic blown in air
its rise and fall from loud to hushed
the distant wail of buzzards on the wing
the rise and fall of mountains to the sky
our spirits rise and fall with all these things.