Late afternoon December
it’s already dark the rain has stopped
although the stream is full & the road
glistens in the sweep of the torchlight
the cold dark stillness makes it difficult
to imagine everyone shut up inside
moving about casting shadows
watching tv or scrolling down a screen
doing their best to pretend everything’s ok
which (let’s face it) it never is
even if you think it is they say
there’s no harm in illusions most of the time
where would we be without them
it’s only natural to fill the gaps
but don’t go fooling yourself
the sweep of that narrow beam
tells us very little only very rarely
do you catch the eyes of a small animal
shining back at you (a cat perhaps)
In the daytime dogs bark when you walk this way
but not now (they’re all shut in) stars
– & a planet – shine bright through the branches of
the ash tree by the concrete bridge I cross
thinking of the orange I’ve just eaten
& which I can still taste & how
you never hear a fox these days
my boots slap through
water laced with cow-shit running down
the lane (it rained remember?) before I enter
darkness absolute between the hedges where
the lane heads off between the fields just then
I hear the owls: first one side, then the other
– two owls in stereo – warning one another
.
Dominic Rivron
.