Life will fight to affirm itself, and new life will exist,
Bees wrestle mortality from the reddening hedgerows,
as sun escapes from downland rain to leave the stream banks kissed.
Jealous admirals run up flags where carmine Hawthorn grows,

Middle age wears the ancient steps to dream of summers past
Dead poets mute and grieving gather in the porch,
And old tides shift out beneath us, running hard and fast,
First frosts call out from Brecon, a fractured winter torch.

Still there is a hope beside these broken walls,
Faith requires sustenance as summer’s embrace fades,
Here now, where Autumn shadows find their early place to fall,

Thoughts of darkening evening light threaten and invade.
Faith is found in shifting cloud shape, old poetic form,
Faith is here where butterfly wing gives shelter from the storm.

by Jon Hamp