Peace Harvest

On a country walk
you can grasp whole handfuls of fresh, clean air;
or gather up the birdsong in great bunches,
throwing it this way and that
as you flick your head from side to side.

The skidding plane of the blue vault
frightens you, and makes you cower in vertigo
as (lying on your back) you plunge deeply in.

Do you remember the times
when you could have reached up
and squashed a cloud,
letting it freeze your palms
as it dribbled through your fingers?

You, who flipped at such a thought,
who found your troubled edges smoothed away,
return to people-squeezing your days on.

“Enough” cries the country,
and weeps its merry heart away.

© Dr Stephen Castell