You old seducer, with your chlorophyll,
Are your promise; their hidden prickle will
Remind me each joy comes with wounds somehow.
And taken by surprise I am undone,
As I find myself to be every year,
I welcome Shakespearean phrases in,
Its very theatre demands it here.
So I feel you move in the woods and lanes,
As the pleasures of your season prove
Through chilly sunlight and the healing rains,
I am not too old to be caught by love.
And later in each greening hedge and field
I see your Casanova charms and yield.
From ‘A Bench for Billie Hoilday’ Valley Press,
