The Old Town

The tennis courts close for the winter
a silence descends on the street
Lights coming on in the evenings
The news, the weather, the kids going to sleep

And we are one day older
maybe one more grey hair on my head
Time folded up like a blanket
and hidden with the photographs under our bed

Now the old crowd has scattered
Like leaves in a storm
Drifting wherever they’re blown
And the old town is battered
by winds off the shore
But where you are, I am home

The jagged silhouette of the late birds
Stacked and ranked in the dark
A cat slips out for the night shift
glides through the cold steel bars of the park.

Just here where the path meets the river
generations have fought, or have kissed
As wine or the moonlight took them
For moon and wine can be hard to resist.