September

Portrait of Ted Hughes
Ted Hughes 1930–1998

We sit late, watching the dark slowly unfold: No clock counts this. When kisses are repeated and the arms hold There is no telling where time is.

It is midsummer: the leaves hang big and still: Behind the eye a star, Under the silk of the wrist a sea, tell Time is nowhere.

We stand; leaves have not timed the summer. No clock now needs Tell we have only what we remember: Minutes uproaring with our heads

Like an unfortunate King's and his Queen's When the senseless mob rules; And quietly the trees casting their crowns Into the pools.

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