Lurch

Fleet of foot, the fox slips over the brow of the hill road; body dark, eyes lit: a photographic negative. Boy misses it but we are in good time for his early bus.

He heads for London with a coach of arty students, two cheese sandwiches and a camera. (Return time: roughly midnight.)

The house is quiet, bar the thump of Dog's tail. Sleep is not calling. There is leftover coffee in a silver flask.

From the porch steps I see the sky lighten, the early cloud drift, the tree silhouettes still leafed, like dark lace; the oak reminds me of a Spanish shawl, a widow's dress.

-Imagine a widow in this breaking dawn light: the sun rising on such a different life.

Birds are piping shrill; traffic on the A30 flows, a constant churn.

The steps are cold: I have on a woollen coat, and flip-flops.

-All over the world, such changes are happening: seasons and circumstances. History seems a clumsy lurch: if we get to hold hands awhile, that is grace in a clumsy world. Good to be stoic but one must leave gaps: it's where hope can get in. All good armour needs a chink, if one is to be human, part of this perception curve.

Out of night, a landscape appears.