[Late October hedges]

Late October hedges along this lane

coloured with flowers

(seasons are late this year):

pink of campion and wild geranium,

toad-flax, cow-parsley, yellow stragglers,

a single honeysuckle.

The bushes though are berried—hawthorn, blackthorn

(remnants of blackberry-flower among the berries),

a few rose-bushes burning with red hips,

and suddenly among those

a white rose, and another white rose.

The wild rose was my flower.  Good that these late flowers

are here for me, you, us now in this late

out-of-season summer

we are giving each other

or fate is giving us, which is at any rate

(whomever we thank for it) ours.