It was strong rain, heavy and full: October
scouring the summer’s dust from the sandstone
and polishing the heat-hardened pasture.
In the morning, the aftermath roared in the beck
running brown, bank-storming, laced with driftwood.

Below the bridge, foam lodged in slack water
and two cream bobbles of froth solemnly
curtsied about each other, while the race
pressed at the yielding earth that crumbled, fell,
dissolved

as we did, in the flood that late
threw down your solitary citadel
and undermined my tower; a storm
washing clear the glass of the soul,
passion that, were it thwarted, would have killed.

Returning on that evening I stood still,
darkened by wings of doubt
that such swift choice could be eternal.

Sun
lit the backwater, where the foam still turned
lazily now, contented with its lot.
Where two had circled on the morning’s flood
one single sphere revolved about itself,
united by the stream; an omen which
I, thinking of our storm of love, found good.