The Canal

The dark musty canal

Is illuminated by the white crystal mist

Hovering on the morning

At winter's request,

 

This beautiful white fog

Blanket's us,

In this scene

We could never have envisaged

For many a year.

 

She threads her arm through mine.

The geese cry

The ducks call.

I look at her profile,

Her sublime refined features

Her skin

Her eyes

And her lips,

And I wonder if I'm now deceased

And stumbled into a heaven.....

 

The canal shivers

It's waters lisp against the moored Barge’s,

Whose cold weather shy owners

Tenderly address, any requirements

That the elements may have recently distributed.

 

We pause,

Pause under a stone grey bridge

The ground no longer damp

Beneath our feet

The low sun sits passively in the distance

Like a gas lamp

In an eighteenth century back street

Severed in its severity

By this rich porcelain fog

Heavy and raw, thick and dense.....

 

A dead sheep,

Unfortunate in misadventure

Floats in eerie silence,

Scarring the scene and moment

It's death and passage

Maybe symbolic

Of where my life

May be heading....

 

She removes her arm

And takes my hand,

We want to kiss

But we won't, not yet.....

 

I watch long and hard

As she talks,

Her words and laughter confirming

That she is all

I have left of clarity

And all I want for eternity.....