Standing Stones

As you see, I’ve taken your advice;
I’m getting out more – chosen
the long way home. ‘Smelling
the roses’ – isn’t that what you said
to do? When bamboo rustles round
the creek, and custard-cupped clusters
of anemone vie amongst the clover
for attention, I write songs in my head
about ‘happy ever afters’.

There’s always coming home, though –
the cat to be fed, after it licks my hand,
then scratches my legs with its claws,
and the sun going down burns like a flare.
A fox barks, far off – cutting through
the Cimmerian gloom, and if, by some
miracle, you were to call, right now,
chances are, I wouldn’t be there.

But then, there’s the wind, slicing in
from the moor, and a querulous fog
devours these moss-ridden stones,
and I imagine Van Gogh, painting
his, ‘Evening Landscape with Rising Moon’,
and wonder how I can feel so empty
now – only an echo left, much like
the stopping of the tolling
of a bell.