I am home again and the outside
With tongue-wet leafy limes
It arches its eyebrow
And gestures "About time"
About time it is, you know
for the reflective world of rain
And the roundly-uddered welcome
Of night-blot's soft refrain

I am home again and the inside
All flush-wall and beam
Clears its floor-creak throat
And sighs in kettle-steam.
About time it calls for hedges,
Beaded in rosehip
Time for the greenly grassflush
And the snaking of raindrip

I am home again and the garden
With cross path arms, it tuts.
And checks again the sundial.
"About time", "no buts".
About time for earthworms and
Shuffling crowsfeet
Upon the moss upon the conker tree
And lichen on the beech

About time for crowsteps
And slates beneath the soak
On top of the singingly
Lingering house, old as oak.
Now I sit where you once sat
In anytime-old air
Soon I will go to London
And I will sing for you there.

The world is impertinent pigeons
And the time-share of sunlight and lamps
And the city is spruced and the city is spinning
To shake off the days of the damp.

The world is bicycle streets
And the clang bang and clattered repair
As the city is shined and the city is oiled
To turn in the nonchalant air.

And I have been so inconsolable
And muted, bewildered in black
And though I have chalked the streets with your was-ness
There never is any way back

The world is without you my love
And although I have tacked and jibed
I have seen your absence always in front
And always your absence behind.

The world is impertinent pigeons
And the time-share of sunlight and lamps
And the city is spruced and the city is spinning
To shake off the days of the damp.

The world is sky-skittish sparrows
And everywhere light is sown
And the toothy mouthed houses are grinning and gleaming
And I am all alone.

The world is impertinent pigeons
And the time-share of sunlight and lamps
And the city is spruced and the city is spinning
To shake off the days of the damp

The world is without you my love
And although I have tacked and jibed
I have seen your absence always in front
And always your absence behind.