Rattled bones

It’s a lovely spring afternoon, so much fresh air!

Until I step outside for a quick nip to the shops:

humans doing human things everywhere.

 

A snarky conversation rolls by with a pram,

loud enough to be commandments –

I think I did see a tablet in their hands.

 

Cars zoom past on a racecourse I can’t see,

their colours all blurring into one

and a thunder juggling my insides around violently.

 

Then there’s the monster being fed parts of tree,

gobbling them up as tasty snacks

while its tamer looks upon its destruction blindly.

 

I admit I can’t fault the elderly chap mowing his lawn,

after all, the sun is out and the grass is dry,

but all combined this noise shatters me and leaves me drawn.

 

Such a journey may have been a simple quest in theory,

yet for me the price of undertaking it

meant spending the rest of the day dead weary.

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An aromatic infusion

We fly up hills and across sprouting fields,

forwards ten years and back a few months,

all the while staying still and linking hands.

 

The roads are curved, never straight,

always interlocking at some distant point.

How many times have we been in this direction

and haven’t noticed?

 

I see us in a cottage

with a workshop made for inventing

and re-inventing.

Mathematical solutions and puzzle pieces

poured into a teapot with pages from a writer’s notebook

and left to brew.

 

The extracts merge together wonderfully,

a full flavour

of the years we’ve experienced in a single cup.

Homecoming

The field is green. So green that it blinds me,

taking over my senses with its scent.

Grass, wildflowers, heather. Pine

off in the distance. And you.

All earth and petals, brambles and silky leaves.

You run your fingers through the long fluffy tails

reaching up to your hips, a smile lingering

at the corners of your mouth.

Welcome home, you say,

and I am welcomed by a cloud of

meadow browns and common blues.

Sense

I take a day and pop it, pill-like, into my mouth.

At first, it’s sour. Scrunched-face sour.

Then the coating dissolves in the rain.

My tongues finds sugar in the flower petals,

bright flags ready to be folded with the first frosts.

Catching, strong coffee finds me. I don’t

like the taste of coffee. I don’t drink it.

I absorb the bold, smokey bean smell

and take energy just from that. Cut grass,

dew-wet, on walking  boots. Spikes

that fall to people, instead of people

falling to spikes. Tea to wash it down.

What lingers

There is comfort to the closeness. Strong scents jarring the nose but relaxing muscles in a way only home can. The earth is close. The weight above, to the sides and below. Inhale. Exhale. A constant movement against motionless time. Soft grumbling from deeper in, memories of warmth. There is nostalgia here, mixed with the damp soil.