Echoes

all the blades
of grass
all the blossoms
the branches
heaving
with the earth’s
breath
littering
with feathers,
the vast lawn
forlorn
eggshells
sounding
echoes of birth.
the queen of spades
at last
all cards
dealing
fast
swept fortune
leaving
the future
seething
from the past.

T.P. Wilkinson, Dr. rer. pol. writes, teaches History and English, directs theatre and coaches cricket between the cradles of Heine and Saramago. He is author of Unbecoming American: A War Memoir and also Church Clothes, Land, Mission and the End of Apartheid in South Africa. Read other articles by T.P..