Where She Wrote Songs Of Scarlet Maples Poem by Mark Heathcote

My daughter embraced the autumn ahead of winter
that brought out in me only melancholy,
a crushing fear that at times would be shared in equal parts
of that season of loss - of self-control and delirium
when everything like the autumnal leaves unravelled
and unrolled. And all the woodland creatures
went missing into their burrows and keyless
dungeon holes, but where she wrote songs of scarlet maples
I would drown in anxiety like a child
without a nursemaid, without a mother - drowning, I would each
year return to spring and summer swimming my backstroke.
But my daughter dived into her scarlet maple leaves
ever forward so deep one autumn, never to be rediscovered
in search of a spring, a Father's love that wasn't mine to give.