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.