An Afternoon Walk

An Afternoon Walk. It is after midday, And, filled with wine and warm food, We flatten the wet grass With clumsy trudge. Leaves reveal the sun’s prismatic flashes, Intermittent arrows that offer Blind comfort. The damp air smells of twilight, Though the day’s hardly done. And each stone, weather-worn, Deflects a close inspection, In shades of shadowy blue. We tiptoe around the grassy mounds, I, imagining the shivering rows, turning, Where we step, Disturbed. We hold hands, but I am Not there. I think I hear ancient hymns drift and catch On the breeze, And whispered voices slip from slumber, Diffuse across time, without words. All that remains is a feeling. The chipped and crumbling stone fragments; My thoughts dissemble into shards On the grass. And I am in this earth- This soft, brown, enveloping ground, Absorbed, Where no light or sound Can reach me. This strange, bleak and hollow silence, Surrounds me fold on fold, Where no bird sings, And stories never told Fight to surface. I hear the distant mower drone, And lamb bleats murmur, While high above, an engine of the past Hums peacefully across the sky, The thin smoke trail connecting you, and I To be wrapped within this silent world; To cease to be; Where all deeds die, And somehow slip away In time, we are all just stories; Our vain attempts to make our mark, Melt like sandstone in rain; Like chalk into dust. Our names carved in art Fail to be indelible, And who knows Who lies here? Our fingers find their meeting point. I think this moment should be suspended. For jealous Time trivialises the relentless Crawl upon the wheel, And shatters us, Scattering our thoughts to be blown to the wind.