i.m. my mother

Some days after the diagnosis

set time, a death-watch beetle,

ticking, you set out undaunted

for the park. Your time of year –

air cold as water, the trees

touched with fleeting majesty.

As we rounded a beech copse,

a puckish wind stirred up and,

like Dante’s fugitives, drove all

about a streaming leaf storm,

shoal-dense and endless, brass

after brass, chattering, sheering

in great murmurations, showing 

the raw grandeur in letting go.