0203 Evensong Poem by Michael Shepherd

As the evening cools
and I go out to water the front garden
watched by the guys
who lounge outside the house opposite
as it opens for its illegal evening business,
looking at me as if I’m expressing
some unnamed insult by my presence
on their turf

I wonder if they are as awed as I
that as the evening light from the west
glows radiant, boundless, just as the sun disappears,
then slowly pales to dusk,
the reds and crimsons, scarlets,
magentas, madders, vermilions, rose,
infuse with an almost ultra-violet tinge, live new lives,
and glow with the passionate intensity of prayer
in their vibrant evensong as if they know
that colour can outsing
any works of man when lived
on petals that know only innocence