It is lunchtime
I have been out
To take a few photographs
Looking at the mist and trees
The small fruit and the fallen leaves
I am back indoors
The radiator keeps me warm
And Poppy Ackroyd’s immersive mix
Keeps my minds attention
Focussed on the lightness of touch
Using the IKEA wooden boxes “knagglig"
For speaker stands has worked a treat
Although I am considering yoga blocks
As an alternative, to allow the boxes
Once more to be used for art material storage
To wonder
How to reach
Beyond here and now
Yes
How to go
Into time
Those thirteen hours
Between your time
And my time
Or those
Fifteen-thousand- one - hundred and twenty
Back to the last time
Imagine
All of that time
Without you
Work it out for yourself
The numbers
Are the easy part
When do we stop doing those things
Which we felt to be so important in the moment
Those activities begun with such enthusiasm
Having found an apparent sense of purpose
Only to find out, days or months later
That the intensity has faded, replaced
Or so I suppose by another, new infatuation
I am clumsy, awkward
Undistinguished
Yet I write
Partly to overcome these failings
But also
As a celebration of my past
My memories
My good times
Which you can’t possibly share
Yet you might have empathy
For aren’t we all, a little
Clumsy, awkward
Undistinguishable
Bright, seriously bright
Winter sunlight
That might set fire
To the dried leaves
If they weren’t so frosty
And of course
The son does cherish my soul
As I hope also for you
On this early December morning
The second Thursday as it happens
What kind of business would it be
If we could not lift ourselves
Out of the doubt of darkness
Into the sprinkled sunshine
Of a day to imagine
The radiators
Each one
Warm
At its selected time
Such is the wonder
Of automation
Fuzzy logic
And Nyquist diagrams
Lest I forget
Machine code
And Basic
As my way of life
I did learn
And understand
I did apply
Negative feedback
Was I in control
I wouldn’t say so
And neither would you
In contemporaneous accounts
There is a frost
In my garden
But also
In your life
How can I
A simple chap
Learn to thaw
In this moment
Or those other times
When I brought
The low temperatures
Into our life
Quite a conundrum
Don’t you think
Trying to be here and now
In the then and there
Rain and sun
And blue-black sky
Turn onto the new lane
On your way to the new road
We will drift apart
It is inevitable
How many nights of appassionato can sustain us
How many did before
A cold spell is on the way
What preparations should I make
What will you have in mind
Perhaps for suggestions
Will we drift apart
Is it inevitable
How many days of commonwealth can maintain us
How many did before
His shoes have yellow laces
She wants to dance in summer frocks
In this style they head off to the races
With little worry for their turning clocks
Thirty-six years later
Swedish Krisprolls in the cupboard
Port Salut cheese in the fridge
Two computers and a stereo in the sitting room
Thirty-seven, the first time of moving
The following year, a first trip to the supermarket
Yet the wine, the chilled white wine
Lost itself along the way
Psychologically, not physically
In the sort of depth of a passion
Towards, or away from, a profession or career
No, or yes, in that sense it was white wine
Do I read too much into your physicality
To replace fable with reality
Only I know, though I do do try
To let others in, on some of the goings on
From meditation
Through to lunch
With hardly a break
For doing good
Or helping anyone
But myself
Then
And only then
While cooking sausages
I decided to take a photograph
Of the sunlit trees
And the fields, covered in mist
Which means a few steps
Down the garden path
Towards the compost bin
Whose lid had been dislodged
And whose repair
Left lunch rather well done
