No Such Signs

During these slow nine months the castle mound,

swelling with cartoon vigour from the surround-

ing shops and offices, has seemed a sign—

not of the town’s past, but of your fine

bones, feather-forming in the fast-

ness of your mother’s side.  And now, at last,

you’re out.  And though I dreamed I saw

your coming in the night, I can no more

credit clairvoyance for what was simply love

than I could moralise that hill.  News of

the fact of you (your real- and rightness) makes

the act of meaning something no great shakes.

So, plummeting down Castle Hill today

past the old motte, I cast away

all such signs.  May the new

and broken morning be no song of you,

but may you revel in this world of things

as I today: you look and autumn springs.