on the hills, ochre grasses

Last night I sat on a log in Simon's field with an abalone sky stretching forever, cottage cheese clouds pretending solidity on the horizon, and watched dark come down, dog draped over my feet. A light in a yurt in the valley pricked on; Jupiter blazed suddenly above, like a Chinese lantern.

Now, this morning, east wind setting horses and sycamore leaves skittering. On the Atlantic seaboard maybe the waves will peel away clean in the offshore wind, egg-white peaks lifting. (I want to use the word isinglass here but think it doesn't fit. I like it though.)

Flights of redwings and fieldfare. A primrose. A last foxglove. Two wild strawberries.

I never expected to feel such jubilation at the simple sight of a dog lapping water unaided from the brook.

I'm thinking again about how love should be and is never straightforward – these needs, these fears, these desires; this wanting a fusing that is not at all about humanness. Wanting permanent transcendence

and how our hearts break

over and over

on the same reefs

and what we have is this moment; and love the verb.

On the hills, ochre grasses whisper crisply of autumn.