The Clearing

It's summer, and sunlight's syrup pours sweet into afternoon. We've come to the bungalow's cemetery to pick over bones of bygone days; touch time's tender skin, lay flowers on childhood's grave. The lodge is razed to the ground. We raise our eyes to sky and take each big breath of blue. Sharp lemon-light cuts through the detritus of our days; the oaks once cloaked in dark. The knotweed nooses and dreamlike domes of fly agaric have all been cleared; the forest sentinels' leafless limbs discarded - an abattoir of strangeness, sawdust-strewn. But all dismemberment is a clearing of sorts. The echoes of emptiness eavesdrop on each reminiscence, as we forage for a few last remnants: blue paisley swirls of 70s tiles, red bricks from an 80s fireplace. A yearning rises suddenly, slick sick-sour in my throat... and yet, it feels cathartic, this purging of the past; this merging of our then and now, this blending of bitter and sweet. 23 February 2023