Sunset fire

Sun setting through the edge of West Wood near Sparsholt

(c) A McN

Foggy reflections

(c) A McN - River Hamble in fog

King again

If there was a best time
It was when you were small enough
that I was big on the stage of your lives.

I was a giant in those days,
A kindly king,
A sage,
A playmate
all rolled into one.

And then the slow drip of years washed it all away.

Now you see me as I am;
Nothing special.
Good at some things
Bad at others.
Embarrassing at times,
And infinitely old and grey
Despite the colours and the wonder
Brimming underneath the skin.

In the ordered world of adults
I'm no longer fit to reign..
I think I need some grand children
to make me king again.


(c) A McN


Not that I wish to put pressure on my children in any way, but I miss belonging to the world of little ones. Their world is much closer to the world I prefer to inhabit and it would be nice to have some fellow explorers who regard it as normality rather than senility.

Transcience

I seem to have been snatching at water all my life.

I speak and the words evaporate into space.
I reach out and touch another but the tingle of the contact fades.
I pray but forget who or what I prayed for.

I see beauty but recall only faintest outlines.
I hear the music of voices I love
but the memory is a faint recording dimly heard through the static of the brain.

I have moments of deep connection when love and respect
arc like electricity in the gap between lives
But so soon it becomes a wisp of remembrance
curling like smoke around faint insecurities.

Even standing still a flood of seconds surges round me;
milliseconds froth and spray against my face.

I want to capture life
To catch a little bowl of friendship and experience,
keep it on the mantelpiece where treasures might be counted like iridiscent fish;
But I know the fish would die.

The transcience of life provokes me;
the flutter of days tumbling from month to year unsettles me.
I feel like a child beneath an autumn tree
snatching at the leaves that cartwheel through the air
and wondering all the time if standing still with outstretched arms
would fetch me more.

So I will rest a while;
letting the golden leaves of time still tumble down
without the need for catching every one,

letting the flow of life slip through my hands
but splashing my face in clean refreshing spray.

I will attempt to live with open eyes and thankful heart today.


(c) A McN


It remains one of the many childhood pleasures I still enjoy. When the leaves fall off the trees I have to catch one at least. They fall with slow elegance but are deceptively difficult to catch.