In A Cold Wind Poem by Rory Hudson

In a cold wind
in a night wind,
under a yellow street-light,
its paleness and the dark night.

Leaves blown past,
down the wind, cast
onto the silent roadway,
or in heaps, on the footway.

The houses that rise
into grey skies,
windows with drawn curtains,
facing onto pale gardens.

Slow in the sky,
the clouds moving by;
on the ground, the shadows blurred,
the whistling wind heard.

And the wind that blows
comes not, nor goes.
In this night, its sound
wraps all around.

Not here alone,
its long low drone,
along endless fences and hedges,
insidiously edges.

Now is the hour,
now is the closing of the flower,
an end to approaching and retreating,
to losing and defeating,

in a cold wind,
in a night wind,
on a corner of a cold street,
where all directions meet.