This time of year I always listen for that loud snap that precedes the deep, ground-trembling thump when some old oak has dropped a big branch. So far this year none nearby have done so, but it's apt to happen. In the meantime I appreciate the quiet once night has fallen, and enjoy the glittering of those stars the trees don't hide. The breaking remains aloof, for how long I don't know. I know that I will share the relief when October lets the forest sigh again.
Sunday Verse
Map Reference
by Simon Armitage
Not that it was the first peak on the range,
or the furthest.
It didn't have the swankiest name
and wasn't the highest even, or the finest.
In fact, if those in the know
ever had their say about sea level or cross-sections,
or had their way with angles and vectors,
or went there with their instruments about them,
it might have been more of a hill than a mountain.
As for its features,
walls fell into stones along its lower reaches,
fields ran up against its foot slopes, scree had loosened
from around its shoulders. Incidentally, pine trees
pitched about its south and west approaches.
We could have guessed, I think, had we taken to it,
the view, straight forward, from its summit.
So,
as we rounded on it from the road that day,
how very smart of me to say or not to say,
what we both knew:
that it stood where it stood, so absolutely, for you.