On visiting a friend in her new home

Frances, always I have wanted to write about leaves.
And when I say leaves I mean colours of leaves and their sounds,
that whispering music, and their ever-slight journeying,
a drawing-of-breath. By whom is it permitted
in the lee of your new house, to write about leaves?

And to let my line learn the shape of a field
as it travels over the shape and sense of the past
outside your door, an unexpected possession
of the day that does not end, in whose gift is it
to tell me of this now?

In the old stone is a phrasing of truth, Frances,
a stillness and a movement without end
that comes from and goes out beyond all houses
to tell of Nature’s moment. It admits me
into its presence, at your new home, today.