THE GATE SWINGS OPEN
( for Mary Frances )

We hang from
(albeit upside down)

now interlaced between
now balanced upon

the five-bar-gate
the river beyond calling our names.

This is the threshold
between lane and field.

We live only
in the moment

and so
forever.

Your dress falling
over your face

stifling giggles
gales of laughter

shaking us from our perch
like windfall apples.

An "Ouch!" and an "Ow!" later
and we are back upon

where we had
fallen from.

A Constable I could imagine
would have painted us

thus
in passing.

Our five-bar-gate
as much a part of us.

Even in this
over-grown now

I still smart
from the sting of its nettles

still taste the tang
of its baby strawberries

at its gnarled
wooden feet.

The gate open
into a world that is

...gone.

Captured in my imagination
by a Constable blur of paint

showing two blurs
that could be considered

us
children at play.

It hangs in my mind
in the gallery of memory.

The light slowly dying
only the laughter remains.

The thrush's song
threaded through the morning.