The wind

This moon, two days past its fullest, must be

shining, blue like here, on stumps and

shattered remnants of the copse I

strode through nightly seeking confirmation

of your love.

The images and spirits I once dodged,

flinched at: are they shattered too, their

shelter wrenched away – are they thus freed? Or

is their story bitterer still than ours?

Did you breathe that mushroom smell, scuff

leaves with your boots as you

scavenged: one pocket for chestnuts

and cobs the squirrels lost, the other

for ceps, and wooden whorls or shapes that

anyone else would miss?

Or did you miss all that, as I am now,

away on ventures new: not bound in life

to that small wood as you are in

this memory of you?

When the wind came, did you scream and freeze

like Hollywood? Or was it over before

it began – Bang! Breath hurled out

of your lungs to join the assault?

Even before, in the time of my nightly walks,

there were things I failed to protect you from: people,

mostly; one in particular. But that

night of the wind – what could I have done but

reach my hand for yours in unfinished

gesture of need and fear?

And now the moon shines; nights are colder.

Stumps, jagged and torn – ripped. And silence.

(Published in Other Poetry).