Finding The Keys
By Robin Robertson
The set seed and the first bulbs showing.
The silence that brings the deer.
The trees are full of handles and hinges;
you can make out keyholes, latches in the leaves.
Buds tick and crack in the sun, break open
slowly in a spur of green.
The small-change colours of the river bed:
these stones of copper, silver, gold.
The rock-rose in the waste-ground
finding some way to bloom. The long
spill of birdsong. Flowers, all
turned to face the hot sky. Nothing stirs.
That woody clack of antlers.
In yellow and red, the many griefs of autumn.
The dawn light through amber leaves
and the trees are lanterned, blown
the next day to empty stars.
Smoke in the air; the air, turning.
Under a sky of stone and pink
faring in from the north and promising snow:
the blackbird.
In his beak, a victory of worms.
The winged seed of the maple,
the lost keys under the ash.
