Just down off the moor,
an hour alone, hoping for more.
Eke out the last of the day,
venerate the time here.
Down to the green lane,
ankle snapping and wet.
Sun in the distance,
low to the horizon,
red behind cloud.

Stop now, alone.
Here is nowhere
of consequence,
but the view insists.
Down the lane,
the runoff spills,
away from sodden fields,
and dumb sheep,

It flows unnamed,
and undammed.
Follow a short while,
like you,
it’s going home.
A stone hedge,
holds hard against the road,
savaged by rough mechanisation,
yet firm, and old.

Darker now,
the tip of the late sun
above the horizon.
What is there in this view,
what stops you in its track?
From here you see
the church steeple,
the village vague.
A few farms, perhaps,
the Barn, Devon sanctuary.

Fields, hedges, grey, green,
unordered, patchwork.
Random intercohesion.
Smoke from damp wood
burning in a distant hearth,
gives instant, pure, joy.

The sky turns
it’s last light darker still.
Above, a buzzard rests
day soon to end.
Departs on a wing turn,
leaves you alone.
This is what holds you,
no one part, all of it.

The totality of here,
a moment of unalloyed being
in that sense of here, now.
Though now could be anytime,
anytime drawn down
from the past thirty years.
To have it back, just this instance,
could you ask for more?

Quietly absorb this,
hold it as it holds you.
Touch the stone hedge,
turn away and walk on down.

Follow