Magic in November

There - among the yellow-green of the leaves, he levitates.

Five floors up in open air: right and left he strolls, roaming at will through London trees. This way and that, fearless and free - wrapped up, in a dance with the breeze.

A miracle sight, this one floating human!

But through the window, take a closer look. There's the metal bones of the scaffold. There the slate, hammer, work; the nails by the fistful. How we should like to be creatures made of wonder - not digging in for rain, for winter.

Jewel of Jerusalem

A curled fist formed of a thousand fingers, each the parched colour of cracked mud.

Most ugly of plants, albeit arch-survivor.

They say a drought could last a century - but just one shower, and you spring back to bud.

Drifting, tumble-weed thing - then so quick to unfurl, fan out flat, a palm of green tips.

So, like no person ever has or shall, you live only when it's simple and good.

The rest - the loves and rapes, heroes and whores, the days and the nights, the winters and springs, this London lounge you are now paused in; human civilisation, and its fall - you bluntly shrug off and ignore. Just when water ends, you die as you should.

Sun and earth, rain that rains, winds that blow: you die, live, die, live among the elements. Silent, pure, unfussy faith: your lesson? Then mad, lurching mankind shall never know.