Gingerbread

You can see me anytime you need me

Warm beyond a reason

Night is on the wing

And you could linger like a grind of ginger

Making love a season

Heating up the skin

You could water me with tears of hunger

Like the wheat in winter

Pressed into a bed

Like a handprint, flour upon a black dress

White against the darkness

Leavened into bread

We are not our gravest deeds

You are not your grieving

For the bravest flower seeds

As the birds are leaving

As the thin glow of summer's death

Will turn the leaves to red

May the wind blow like a lover's breath

Still warm as gingerbread

Dreams are kneaded into walls and windows

Sheltering our sorrows

Dusted and adorned

With the sweetness of some kind tomorrows

Sugar's incompleteness

Rested into form

We are not our gravest deeds

You are not your grieving

For the bravest flower seeds

As the birds are leaving

As the thin glow of summer's death

Will turn the leaves to red

May the wind blow like a lover's breath

Still warm as gingerbread

While the black sky spreads its myth of thunder

That we labour under

Reckoned by the dead

These are crude thanks, charity and food banks

For our harvest splendour

Pepper for our bread

We are not our gravest deeds

You are not your grieving

For the bravest flower seeds

As the birds are leaving

As the thin glow of summer's death

Will turn the leaves to red

May the wind blow like a lover's breath

Still warm as gingerbread