Silent and smoothly darkened
pass the baskets with the strange
reluctance of evening doves.
A last flight swept by flame roars,
space seen and space missed for
the beautiful sadness of the balloon
signing God's acre, the ochre wheat
and shadow on the foliage as it drifts
westwards then east, closer or away
like the riders' lives dangling beneath,
charcoal to the moon's chalk smudge
and thin cries that fell to our garden
and lay on the table like browning petals.
conjured from day's offcuts, the newly
enchanted passed over us, somehow
maintaining their footing on death's
loosening scree.

Will Stone is a poet, essayist and translator. His first collection, Glaciation (2007), won the International Glen Dimplex Award. A second collection, Drawing in Ash, was published in 2011.