She was always old and always young.

Face to blue sky like an autumn leaf

Where autumn leaf spirals, a dab of

Redness to remind. Blotting the blueness

Of sky, here, and here, saturated season

In its long drop, no longer leaf, no longer

Life in motion. Her face the centre

Not the spiral. Floating gently

in ever ebbing ever receding motions.

The old lady, her bathtub in the yard,

Old, porcelain, idle. Filled with Sun drawn water,

Floating an autumn leaf in arrested fall

Renewing life with face to sky,

Face to blue sky, facing backwards to blue water.

Time patient in between.

Not rushing past in grey uniforms of

A schoolgirl watching knowing that she lay

In it filled with summer water

and renewed her life minute by minute.

We all have our fictions, this is mine.