When laughter meets like dust with wilting light That is when I will remember you When wedding bells no longer sound contrite I will have no need to bid adieu To fond memories of sweetened lovers' rites Lost, where honeybees and heather grew When the vineyards grow a grape to make a potion Of nostalgia and a sorrow for what's lost When I drink to lonely days and sad devotion And every hour is a cobweb flecked with frost On the rusted gateway of a silly notion Then our last words will disperse - with no riposte When the windmills slowly sigh like brooding giants Emptied of their tasks of toil and grain When they rot within yet still stand strong, defiant While hoping not to be recalled in vain And gaze through windows sturdy and reliant A collage of the seasons in their panes When the rivers claim a cargo of lost jewels To ferry them o'er distant plain and crest While the trees can only watch in silent schools And shiver at the spindle wind, undressed I will try to gather up a gleaming pool Then see it slip through fingers tightly pressed When the winter fields are watercolours running Like fraying fabrics failing at the hem When I catch the choke of tractor engines gunning But catch myself before I mimic them Through self-hood's solitude, through craft and cunning Then the skyline shall be sharpened once again So when the early masking mist is sallow, sullen But cannot deign to halt your weary feet When all the tunes of wooden panpipes' songs are spun Echoing across the lowland lee When the dawn burns bright with incense - and clouds of cinnamon Pause for just a moment and remember me Then if we meet - by chance or will - as two So laughter rings out, free of knot or tether When twilight settles we will wander through These woods above the honey fields of heather And maybe one day we will fade - but if we do I promise this; that we will fade together