On the Meadow at Eaton Ford

The floodplain spread out like a manuscript dropped at our feet, the horizon

in hiding beyond sight and thought, or shadows of border and copse,

or of violet rooftops and ridge tiles, or the red-brick church’s weathercock

rampant in the slipping dream of summer on the opposite bank of the Ouse.

An impatient moon loitered in the wing of a cellophane sky

as a suicidal willow dithered teetering on the riverbank,

morosely stroking the water while lifetimes slithered through its fingers

and ruing the desolate wastes that lay in the shade of its tears.

And Juliet walking beside me, her skin more arresting than September,

said what are you thinking? and my thoughts froze in the glare of her inference.

I led her from the path and we waded through uncharted daisies and clover,

to a wilderness of dizzying maybes where shadows take pity on sinners.

I felt the warmth of her bare arm swinging inches from mine:

how artful she was they not touch! By the veil of the willow’s undercroft

I wordlessly reached out to thread my life among her fingers;

she squeezed my hand, smiled, then like a widow reconciled, let it fall.

(c) 2013 Slush Poet