Wanderer's Ditty

Upon the road knotted with knee hollies green
and bitterest rot of the husbandman's vine,
where patch-thick in the trousers and bitterly green
I went stumbling for starflower and time.

"A bundle for your back and tread until noon,"
asks the husbandman, plucking his twine
by the road, south, tunneling fast in the trees
to take easterly his bushels for wine.

"I've a basket for starflower to catch in the hills
and time where starflowers grow,
I've a wicker mesh woven untimely for the hills
and go quickly where the wind in the earth sows."

"But knee holly is lovelier and butcher's broom hale,"
winks the husbandman crouched by the road
to twist red-berried sprigs from the bush
where he kneels
and dress sparsely his wheelbarrowed load.

"Butcher's broom or knee holly," his grin tailored ruche,
and slight as he whispers his wine
in the mouth of a cavernous well, slightly ruche,
in my ear laden wet with his brine,

'Til a white-petaled flourish withers pale on the hills
and summer towards the fall downward winds,
'Til the winds in the field are all shaken loose
and my basket all emptied of time.