Everything is cyclical like sunlight and seasons
and hair styles and hemlines. Everything is cyclical.

I found you at the first turn- a pencil line on a blank canvas
by an academic of fine fashion with a fringe of falling violets,

it was the back side of the Botanics, at the later side of winter,
all grey, even then, back in my untasted youth, even there,
surrounded by all that should have been blooming green

but I just saw the shadow between the black and the white,
the empty bench in between the bark, not the blossom sitting
a frame away, left side, across the bridge, more to the main path.

Roads, wood and diverges and me-
always looking for another way out.

Everything is cyclical like creation and country and going out
and then coming home again and again. Everything is cyclical.

I found you recently, again, on a green day, later, when my hair
was greyer but my soul a sway more centred towards the violet.

I stole a piece of you, this time, on film but when I looked back,
after coming home, I noticed how I’d caught you in that shade,
that former shade found in between the black and the white.

Everything is cyclical like births and blossoms and sometimes
belonging and sometimes colour when it’s blooming grey.

All words, drawing and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly