Old Man's Beard

It doesn’t belong here 
 But still I see it year after year 
Taking the lime it needs from the spoil 
Of a house long gone, so it grows up 
And greys the bare hedge in Winter. 


 Old men lived there once, women too; 
Perhaps they died there before it crumbled 
And it commemorates their grey hair 
And ragged clothes. It was long ago


That the house fell but when the seed came 
Is hard to tell. It was there from the first 
Time I passed in Winter. I always mean to look 
When Summer comes for the flowers in bloom 


But I’ve never seen them. It is passing 
That it means to me, leaving things behind. 
Old men, old women, lives like green leaves 
That withered before I knew them.