I went to bed with a wandering girl,
her dark hair shone with glints of moon
and we played at love in my room of red,
till midnight rang and the stars came down.
When we went to sleep I gladly dreamed
that we played at love in a room of green.

But in that dream I fell asleep
and dreamt we lay in a room of black,
then the black door opened and a man stood there:
It is my husband screamed the girl,
the one I've feared for seven years,
he's come to take my soul from me.

We woke at once in the room of green,
My soul has gone! she cried in fear,
then the green door opened and a man came in:
It is my husband shrieked the girl,
The one I've fled these seven years,
he's come to take my love from me.

And when we woke in the room of red,
she trembled as she clung to me:
O husband where's my lover gone?
I looked around, no word I said,
but rent her limbs with smoking hands,
then closed the door on that room so red.

Homewards, I pass our local monastery,
small windows pour light onto the dark:
monks in contemplation in their cells.
As I reach my home and turn the key,
the town winks out behind my back.

I love the winter power-cuts, when I dream of bees
and the summer days I sunbathe in the garden,
nostalgic then for winter ghosts and hearth-fires,
and all around the drone among the flowers:
a gathering in before the days begin to cool.

In the kitchen, I strike matches; candles blaze.
Then spread thick slices with the glinting bronze
dripped from autumn’s cloistered honeycombs,
whose wax like solid silence lifts the light:
a dozen summers on the candles’ lips.