Invented Discussions With Myself #1

By Peter Devonald

You’ve changed

I can see you’ve changed.

The fire in your eyes is weaker

your jawline less defined

less going places.

Less ambition.

Decades marked in creases

grey highlights on display.

You smile. Laughter lines sing and celebrate

a life well lived.

You always lived life at arm’s length

like you were passing on through.

An angel who’d lost their wings.

So much easier to write about life

than live it

to observe rather than participate.

The garden is resplendent in early spring sunshine

everything radiates, luminous

a perfect blue painted sky

reflections of trees on walls

do the trees ask why?

Do the trees ponder the universe?

Such stillness and beauty

as if the world is at peace.

The coffee percolates with flowery aroma

rich and thick.

We drink in silence with our history heavy

memories fluttering like distant birds

searching for a home.

All that searching, were we already here?

We decide to leave the past where it was

a tulip blooms alone with splendour.