Our Tune.
The loud tick of my pine-clock slowed
as I sipped old wine,
remembering the fun of raiding hedgerows
and carrying home
bags which dripped spots of summer
from scarlet-ripe fruits
*
*
spurting long before being crushed into
juice as I gently,
like a good midwife, tried birthing with
coddle a new honey brew
and bottled in well-stirred batches
brown blackberry looseness
*
*
which labelled and dated I surveyed
very proudly before
storing my babies in cellared cool where
half forgotten they
stood dutifully burping before garishly
aging to fully mature.
*
*
Now with desperation on near horizon
I had to try one
when fermented chatter quieter grown
whispered its magic,
reviving past honey-mooned kisses
of happy recalled allure
*
*
as berry-stained hands linked mem\'ry\'s
laughter while dipping
together we mixed crimson slurry in
sip-stolen unhurry
before time took you and left me with
only war-widowed gloom
*
*
yet now drinking this sparkling glass
of clear nectar I toast
in ready nostalgia sediment\'s potent
result while listening intently
to alchemy\'s music of wine-effluence
still striving to sing our tune.