Bradgate Park

The darkened hues of autumn
Began to roll over the horizon
Like the hair of a girl with auburn locks.
Gently swaying in the breeze like a belly dancer,
With each ripple descending into the drunken earth.

The hill stood proud and undisturbed,
As Old John’s silhouette fronted the golden glare,
Half tilted like a leaning tower,
As the hill’s contours energised its flow.

A sandy path meanders like a dry bed stream,
Up from my feet to the pinnacle:
Like a snake between the ferns and dry grass,
They shroud and hug its shoulders.

The moonlight will soon appear to re-arrange the scene.
Summoning the ghost of Lady Jane: Amongst
The derelict architecture and conscious ruin of the old house and oaks:
Where at twilight she roams the hillsides;
Here spirit set free to dance on the shards of beams
And lace the moon glazed landscape.

The sun begins to dip its fingers into the burnt horizon
Suggests another life: Michael Angelo starts to paint
His celling, in vivid vibrant insignias of orange, purple, magenta;
Burning colours, in the glowing light:

The hill now still, awaits the master’s transform,
From a fluttering butterfly into a stone cocoon.
To sleep nocturnal during the midnight luminosity,
From the burnished haste of the afternoon.

The only evidence of the wind,
A gull rides upon its thermals:
Slowly being lured into the arch of Old John’s
Spell. Arching, drifting like a glider,
Unsure of its descended path:
Screeching in bleeding ecstasy, awaiting Lady Jane’s
Midnight glance.

I believe this place to be enchanted late in the thickening night.
Transfigured into a trance,
Whirling wildly where only sound makes its stance
Of the untold hidden romance,
Of Old John and his estranged lover,
Dancing to oblivion
On the shards of the brazen moonlight.