What's left
The shadow of a shadow
where he walked between
bright sparkling raindrops on green leaves
and ferns on a mossy bank beneath the trees;
the ghost of a print
at the edge of a path;
a white imagined shape
behind twisted boughs;
a rustle in the dead leaves
that is just the wind;
the sighs of the tall pines,
the colours of the sea;
next year's bracken
curled in wait under the
dying fronds, the goldfinches
and robins and deer
the lapping of the waves
on boulders
go on.
© Paul McCombie 2012