A pair of horse-chestnuts

Underneath the soulful nave of reaching tree-arches
Stealing the sacred ground beneath the evening's branches
Two hard, baffled horse-chestnuts lay, meditating
On summer's brevity and the infamous advent waking.

New life in darkness, companions if adversarial
They lie now on my desk, reminders of recent annual
Blackening as the new term melts into routine
And the puzzling antiphon connects nature to life's dream.

An expectation of night-time is never the reality
Night's termtime is not merely unforgiving work, but levity
Spaced hours of cool aloofness linked by friends and song
Sharp air imminent with the hope of December's dove-white wing.

Horse-chestnuts, brown quintessence of autumnal pleasure
Hoarded by me ever more like night-time's treasure.

TCH 3/10/2003

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