Evensong

A blackbird
Strikes the evening air alive
Then, settling at roof, bestirs
With liquid cadences
The tranquil moods of amber dusk.

It wakes from dream
And drowsy half-asleep
Another summer's fringe-frayed memories;
It rings a sunset Angelus,
A churchtower summons of tumbled chimes
That spill across the longshade lawns
And call us home again.

Our walk among the headstones,
For some time now adjourned,
Is sleepily resumed
The friends not quite remembered,
The names and faces blurred.

But recollection filters through the years
As too the evening light.
Between the marbled angels,
It casts a spray of sunset and touches on the stone
Of mossed and brambled epitaphs
The timeworn, the unread.

Then, little-valued friendship,
Deserted at each turn,
Ill-worn save brief remembrance
In the summer's evening calm,
Emerges from the shadows
The dust of other years
And in a gentle knowing voice
Reminds each of his past,
Of fast-forgotten fellowship
And quickly-buried youth.

"Where have we gone my hapless friends,
My poor misprizing friends,
Who have walked here a time ago
When we were loved and loved in turn.
And can we now afford no more
Than momentary pause for thought -
A minute's brief delay
For sharers of a common youth
In turning hours of day?"

And thus the gentle knowing voice
Is heard to fade and blend
With lilted silhouetted song
From summer's sleepy gable-end.