Happenstance Poem by Oliver .........

Midnight! I hark to the whispers of trees that toss
Their branches like dancers in festal season!
O trees, they swing as the breath of darkness gushes
Across the thorpe! Beneath this blackish or brown
Thick soil, the roots here map a rainless region;
The summer goads those frogs to croak aloud,
As though in rage about the rain that fails.
Beyond the farms, the Black Vine Mount! I gaze
The stones in night, all bare and firm around,
The mist alights to wrinkles of leaves on the teaks
All riddled in night enclaves, the cries of wind
As I reach here alone, exploring a lofty abode.
A drunken lout, I left my home; I mourn
Upon dreams and ask: what do I seek alone?
The harvest's over; the farms, not ploughed, are beyond
This tryst! Above, the stars are dead on sleepy
Embankments in sky! O black Vine Mount, the raised
Depot of rocks, all hurled missiles of enemy!
As humble as a devout nomad I kneel; I'm broody
Again in despair; my raiment is black as my broken
And parched tongue gendly sinks in thirst to burn.
My heart tick-tocks; the clock here chimes to rocks;
The moon is dulled; I stumble in dreams and behold
The wilderness; I browse the stare of gnarly heights,
The breadth and length of fissured solitude!
O megaliths squirm, perhaps to transform and hide
In black Vine Mount! O nudity of earth,
Into which I feel I fall, as though in death!
I hit an ancient trail, winding! I glimpse
The darkness and lie down! Despair I fling to soil;
Later I perch on a rock, and press grief to size,
And place in earth again. My stricken soul,
Here transcends through mist, and I slowly avail
The reason that I reached here! O I meet none around,
But night is cool as a leaf, a comforting hand!