The Sheep in the Orchard

The morning journey in a small yellow van,
with breath like smoke, and fields like sugar.
Frost solarises each dark twig,
candies each mint lawn with glitter.

Lizzie learning faraway would love
this beauty, her eyes would drink long
these various miracles, and she would smile
her smile which falls in silence like a song

The sheep in the wrecked orchard,
trees ripped horizontal, frozen in greys.
The sheep sullen, unmoving, puff,
individually placed, like farmyard toys.

Lizzie playing faraway, puffs happiness,
blows the warmth, and finds a hiding place too,
where plastic joy soothes, and real tears
cannot exist, although they do.

A tractor idles, blue stain on the white,
the driver shudders, breathing ghosts.
The orchard disappears into itself,
receding in silver, the distance lost.

Lizzie you haunt each moment now,
do not disappear in the infinity
that becomes the forgotten why and how
of love, and silence, and memory.

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