Scarlet

The last of that lot.

Scarlet
Pink sunbeams, falling
From a grey sky, heavy, still,
With frowning clouds,
On the unforgiving jagged rocks
Of a craggy precipice,
Uncover, with pale,
Pitiful fingers,
The fluttering of a ragged scarf,
Once bravely scarlet,
Coloured in chemical dyes,
Bought, perhaps,
From some brightly decked shop,
One of the multitudes perched on the hills,
But a little way from here,
Scarlet still,
But steeped now in natural hues,
Heavy with the life-blood
Of the twisted body,
Blown off the road by a storm,
Or tossed off it by a rock-slide,
Or maybe something as insipid
As slipping on the ever-present streams of water,
Lying in eternal rest,
Hidden between the rocks.