On Words Poem by Eric Ratcliffe

Let us form our words in some October room
and let the meanings run, rounded and foretold
by the eyes' long glances, or quickenings
under white and gentle eyelids.

Let us form our words before the setting sun;
your corn hair grained with the wind;
your face trim and lovely, and the leaves
taken around us in an arch of emerald.

You, flushed as a woodman's daughter;
I, like some green giant down from the hills,
quoting the trees again.