originally published as part of a collection, circa 1996 by Penhalion Press, Wales, UK (all rights Francis DiPietro)

Down between the trodden paths
of former crystal-ivory sheen,
she walked in rags, in rags she walked
beyond the willow-dipped water pool
filled with algae of forest green.


And all that came to her in summer
now wore a heavier autumn coat,
the promises thickened, overlapping
to stifle the honor of spoken words
and prey upon the words she wrote.


Now like the dried hyacinths, bitter,
she walked beyond the crumbling wall
which traced the borders of Llangollen,
little eyes in darkened windows watching
the rag lady clutch her summer shawl.


In the basket she left the child,
a small dead thing encased in wicker
and planted in the wildmeadow hill.
Now she would be as shunned as it,
to walk and walk the weedy paths
until one day, one day, to flicker.


She would find the sea at all costs;
tomb of water, womb of salt.
She would find the sea, the sea
at all costs.