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 burping loudly approaching
change to maturity.
*
*
Now with desperation on near horizon
I had to try one
when fermented chatter now fully grown
whispered its magic,
reviving past honeymoon kisses
of hazy-dayed allure
*
*
as berried hands linked memory\'s
laughter while dipping
together we mixed slurry sediment in
sip-stolen unhurry
before time took away all but grief
of war-widowed gloom,
*
*
but now drinking a grateful glass
of clear nectar I toasted,
in ready nostalgia devotion\'s potent
result, listening intently
to a mystical alchemic liquidy-red
still singing our tune.