Wild Strawberries

Wild Strawberries

reading a book

a phrase

without forewarning

drops me into a walk

I took years ago in France.

A woman collecting wild strawberries

extends to me a just picked handful
still keeping stride

my hand returns the reach
 receiving small bursts of sweetness

though the guidebook warns 
of dire results

from eating low-growing fruit 

peed on by foxes

their lush red juices wash my sweaty palm until
around the corner

(erring on the side of safety) 

I toss them back into the fields….. 

5000 miles distant ten years later I taste 

their sweetness still.

......a marriage holds.....

A marriage holds enough of time
to bring down all the walls      
that hold me in or hold you out      
from what we want most of all. 

A marriage holds enough of space 
to let us blindly run    

crashing smashing all our fears

‘till circling fences round us come.  

        

A marriage holds enough of hope 

to feel the other near     

until by grace we find the place  
where happiness can grow. 

Writ in stone

I used to think our life was writ in stone

cast and finished minute by minute.

But maybe our life is writ with the clouds

that move and disappear high above us

leaving behind just the sky.

Missing London

Things I miss about London…….

….the whole world walking by

….a foreign language heard on every block

….the Thame’s tide flooding over the sidewalk so deeply it bars our way to the pub

….rows of little houses with tiny gardens out front

….Oyster cards and the Metro with all one needs to know of violence and sports

….“Hello, Love” and “Brilliant” and “Clever”

….my twenty new best friends from all over the world

….taking a different walk every day of the year and always thinking it’s the best one yet

….pub lunches, pub wine times, pub lattes, pub names, pubs period

….airplanes flying towards Heathrow showing me the direction towards home

….foxes barking and pow-wowing right below our windows at night

….babies--singles and twins—but mainly twins--everywhere

….girls in stilettos and short black skirts on Saturday nights in winter weather

….heaters and boilers in the attic….a different key for every door and window

….junkmail in the letter slot three times a day

….Bourough Market on Fridays eating toasted raclette sandwiches and sipping wine sitting on the kerb

----asking two or three times for a Brit to please repeat but still not understanding a word s/he said

….lilting Irish and crazy Scottish

….Angelina Jolie, Brad Pitt and the Queen walking down our street

….the five charity shops between the two Indian restaurants on our street

….Jerusalem, War Horse, And Then They Came for Me, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof                          

….10 pound last minute tickets to a London play any day of the week

….Darwin, Jane Austin, Virginia Woolfe, George Eliot

….Indian curry, William and Curry chocolates, Cornwall pastries

….Marks and Spensers Per Una, House of Frazer, Carnaby Street

….ten coffee shops on every block

….two hours by train to reach the English Channel

….the Thames Path, the Jubilee Walkway, the Capital Ring

….Kate and Will….(and now the baby!)

….sitting by the Thames reading a book.

Missing London

Richmond upon Thames