The World is Charged

I was startled by the squawk, the simultaneous long-tailed and spread-winged half-spectacular half-dive of the cock-pheasant, his wattles, his bronzed body up over the hedge and see! there! the Japanese anemone, pea-green heart within a scatter-ring of gold and here humbler still, and local see the mare's-tail weed and the quick reaching of the briars, note, too, how the tiny pimpernel persist along the driveway, from the red gate to the front door. Astonishment, from heart to eye to ragwort, from there to woodlouse, eucalyptus, owl, and on to Sirius and the Plough... And we have been, years, she and I, walking by fields where generations lived and loved, have laboured and have disappeared with their sheds and implements and cattle into the deep, where they stay resonant in their silence, their poorer cottages crumbled into liqueur of rose hip, dust of nettle, knowing that we too will be with them, alive and loving in the warm light that still persists, hereabouts, and everywhere, and forever.