Birds came and pecked through the silver top,
popping their beaks in
for a dribble of milk,
it was cold then,
back in the old days
not so anymore.

And the slow light of the glow worm that could turn a bird in mid flight would send sparse light, but enough light as if enough light was a feast.

The snowmen in the garden that stood under the clothes line looked perfect with two buttons sewed into their eyes until the thaw came and they melted like our hearts did when they went away and the days grew even longer after that.

The frogspawn burst into tadpoles became black comma's in the pond and the herons flew like spitfire aircraft,
how daft we laughed and gaily played as if the season would last forever and tomorrow would never come.

Mr's Brown is Bobby coming out to play today?

Then Bobby went away,
taken by leukemia that crept in silently and took him quietly and still we squandered the fading sunlight.

On the dullest of days when the bagpiper plays and a darkness comes into my heart,
I stand there, out on the foreshore, waiting for emptiness
and wanting no more.