In these troubled times,
more often than not
I find
that I am happiest whilst running.
And it makes me feel a little sad,
because it’s a lonely thing to do.
But the grins at the dinner parties
and the mugs in the pubs
only make me nervous.
So I lace up my jogging shoes
and choose music on my faithful cheap, knackered and battered mp3.
And at the moment it’s the drinkers, the sluggers, the fighters,
who are singing to me.
Old poets who have been there
and then come back.
I seem to need to know their stories.
And as I bounce beside the river,
it’s like a score, a fantastic soundtrack,
as the music moves with my world.
A cracked voice falters,
Gently unfurls,
Sighs down the chords,
Two gulls dip to the water,
Then soar,
Away, away and high.
And it’s beautiful.
I wonder
Did God have music in mind
When he taught them
How to fly?
And other such thoughts as I pant heavily by
and stop and rewind
a verse that I love,
and listen again,
and watch the stillness of the heron,
the steel backed black moorhen.
And I’m happy.
I need this journey.
Especially the halfway point,
where,
heart pounding,
I stop,
bend,
breath,
slowly turn upon my tracks
and with legs aching, chest heaving,
I follow the flow of the river home,
and I know
that I have been there,
and that I can make it back.