No Bowl of Cherries

And so here we are after dinner; a glass
of wine in hand, while a great buffoon
of an orange moon denies the stars
their chance to shine. Forty-five years
we’ve been doing this; apart from
when you went away on one of those
all too frequent business trips abroad.
You took me with you, when you could...
even though I was shit-scared of flying.
Thought the kids might end up orphans;
their parents, statistics in a plane crash
but as it happens, that never happened.

That’s one of the bonuses of growing old;
all those dreadful things one worries about
when one’s young, not coming to fruition.
I didn’t succumb to a life-threatening illness,
thank the Lord, and our daughters – born
with all their faculties; arms, legs, fingers
and toes, all present and correct. Sadly,
our time with the eldest – cut, cruelly short,
and somehow you ended up with Parkinson’s,
and what the future holds, we don’t know...
any more now than then.

Nevertheless, there’s much to be thankful for,
as we sit and watch the darkness grow,
and still delight in each other...and that first
cup of coffee. The way the sun strikes
the top of our hill in the early morning,
and on going down, swallowed by the trees
on Flitwick moor. Life for us has surely been
no bowl of cherries, but tonight, as I take
your mouth whole in mine...sweeter by far
than any red morello, I’ll celebrate what I have...
stones and all.