Whilst you are waking - a memory surfaces.
I marvel at you
The mists of sleep dressing your eyelids
As they move from deep somnambulance
To a dreamy semi-consciousness
The softened muscles, contours
The hills and valleys of your landscape
Your bare-chested forests,
Uncoiling from winter to spring, taut, vibrating
From dormant brittleness to fluid movement.
I walk your brow with my fingers,
As your abeyant dreams, touched by a cautious sun
Allow a little smile to display itself like clouds of snowdrops
And drooping daffodils, dressing the banks of a meandering
Riverbed, swollen, sluggish, powerful.
As you emerge from sleep, the weight of burdens
Sliding like silk-sheeted storms from your bed.
And the air is perfumed by your quickening breath
As birds rise, as clouds disperse, as grass quivers
And winds calm. Spring, sweeping hesitant,
Along the lanes and byways, a light touch,
A gentle presence pulling the earth into re-birth.
Whilst you are waking I gather myself in,
Alert to the uncurling softness, the downy yawn
Surfacing, a blinking moment of awareness
Comforting like my warm palm against your rough cheek
Or a sweet, shy kiss. I hold this moment, knowing
That soon you will rise and wander away towards summer.
February, 2024