Sultry summer evening,
Voices from a nearby garden
The clink of glasses
Muted laughter
Doves co-cooing in the branches of a tree
Squadrons of swifts performing aerial acrobatics,
Screeching their commands as they change formation.
A single engine plane passes
Above all this
My heart beats its steady rhythm
ba-boom, ba-oom, ba-boom
The clock ticks the seconds by
tick-tok, tick-tok, tick-tok
Pulses of energy from across the void of space
Until the night is formed
I am surprised to see stars
(after several cloudy days)
And they effortlessly draw me out
into the cool stillness of the night
In search of total darkness
I find myself in the graveyard,
(having lifted the latch of the lychgate, quietly)
The only place the glare of streetlights does not intrude
The dead having no need of light
I sense no ghosts here,
but nevertheless
I feel a shiver down my spine
As I look up into the cosmos
And take my seat beneath the theatre of stars
20 July 19
