'Finders, Keepers'

Planted an oak, to stake our claim,
the day we moved in; the hill – mine,
plus a hundred acres of sky.

An expedition, all the way to the top –
me, and my two year old; picnic
by a shawl of chattering pines...

Dwarfed – our cottage, way below,
in the peach-tree dappled shade,
of a long-since tended orchard.

Bees – strum-hum in the clover,
and a skylark sings the many faces
of god and she sees dragons in the clouds.

‘Look!’ I say. ‘There’s a ‘Meadow Brown’ –
a ‘Painted Lady’, but now –far too busy,
playing with her toys.

Tea-time – the wind is chill, so pick up
her bat and ball – her teddy; a book
I brought to read. Fat chance of that!

‘Couldn’t we stay?’ she whines, as I lift her
to my hip. Grubby hands reach out –
reluctant to leave...

grabs a tuft of budding vetch; purple
and white. Gleefully, she brings it home –
as tiny flowers, shyly open

but the butterflies, the sun, the smell
of fresh-shorn grass, too much for us
to carry, and indeed, not ours to take.

Only on loan...the hill – the whole
of this. The best I can do, is to promise
we’ll come again...maybe tomorrow,

but then...only if we pay back,
all that we borrow.