Saying Goodbye
Misty autumnal 8 a.m.
A line of twenty-two geese
On their early morning commute
Lazy flapping
Following the tracks
Keeping to the margins of earth and sea
Ignoring the cormorant hanging out to dry.
Part of me is still looking around
That last look
Nervous in anticipation of what I’ve forgotten
Or never thought that I needed
Realisations held off until some indeterminate moment in a future
Long imagined
But it no longer matters
The boundary of waiting and moving has been crossed
For a few moments at five thirty seven yesterday evening
A few moments before cooking fish
With a tomato sauce and spaghetti
Wrecked from the packing and snipping
The threads of my ‘old’ life –
NO – I can’t do this
This might be too much for me
And then from not being hungry, I’m ravenous . . .
for this new life
Rabbits and pheasants play at being rabbits and pheasants
And the mist rich sodden fields play at referring to Arthurian deep structure
And what about all those friends I didn’t manage to see
Or phone
Or e-mail
To say au revoir – I’m off to a new life
After supper it was off to the Barn
To watch Philippe Petit as the Man on the Wire
– An angel
And look at what it takes to be an angel
Cheek chutzpah total dedication
And then to have whatever it takes to step on to the wire
A quarter of a mile above the earth
– So that’s where angels live!
But not me I hasten to add
Apart from a couple of hours or so
Cooped in easyJet style
I intend keeping my feet on the ground
Rather awed (and bowed)
By glimpses though the clouds of the mountains ahead.