it’s a shame to stay indoors
on a day like this you say
so we go for a walk
through the trees
round the lake
though bigger than a pond
it isn’t large & there are birds
(geese protecting their chicks &
a grebe that keeps diving
only to resurface
some moments later
a short distance from where
it last went down)
& there’s
an island in the middle
which you could probably swim to
I think about this a lot
as we walk round the lake wondering
is the water warm enough
(it’s only April after all)
& how there must be a point
at the centre of it all
it is no doubt an unremarkable place
either occupied by
one of the many trees that grow thereabouts
or as overgrown as the spaces between the trees
all round the edge of the island
although you never know as
the trees by the lakeside
through which we walk
maintain only the illusion of a forest
if you set off through them
at a tangent to the water
you soon come to a barbed-wire fence
beyond which there are only fields
.
Dominic Rivron
Picture by Nick Victor
.