O leafy yellowness you create for me
A world that was and now is poised above time,
I do not need to puzzle out Eternity
As I walk this arboreal street on the edge of a town.
The breeze too, even the temperature
And the pattern of movement is precisely the same
As broke my heart for youth passing. Now I am sure
of something. Something will be mine wherever I am.
I want to throw myself on the public street without caring
For anything but the prayering that the earth offers.
It is October over all my life and the light is staring
As if caught me once in a plantation of fox coverts.
A man is ploughing ground for winter wheat
And my nineteen years weight heavily on my feet.

Patrick Kavanagh