AUTUMN
When I return with mugs of peppermint tea
you are asleep in the October sunshine –
a fallen golden birch leaf at your feet,
a last wasp buzzing in your shadow.
We have grown old together, ancient
in our ways. But age is a wrinkled
masquerade. ‘Old clothes upon old sticks
to scare a bird,’ as Yeats wrote, at sixty,
a mere stripling. We seem sole survivors
of our youth and prime – so many dead
have fallen by the way. We have made a pact –
and will keep to it if chance permits –
to die, like the luckiest of monarchs
amongst their treasures, in our own bed.
I put the mugs gently down beside you
on the low, stained table we have had for years.
‘O body swayed to music, O brightening glance,
How can we know the dancer from the dance?’
Yeats asked. You wake, and smile.
John Huddart
October 30, 2020Except you are both rich in ideas and young in hearts and minds….
Ashen Venema
October 30, 2020The luckiest of monarchs … lovely that.
Elise Oliver
October 31, 2020Whilst acknowledging an acceptance of reality, this oozes and imparts such contentment and tranquillity. It almost made me fancy a cup of peppermint tea. (Almost).
Alex Cox
October 31, 2020Beautiful, David. Thank you.
Mary A Clark
November 8, 2020Another beautiful one, David.