It has been grey and drizzly I went today to stretch my legs, there were few souls out, a small posse of boys and dogs and while I stop to notice a birch on the zigzag, a girl on a pink bicycle her Mum in tow, picking up after the dog. At the top a young woman with long hair hammering out a slitter against Keatings wall, leaping into lightening bolts with every strike, as I turned at the top she packed it in and got back into her car. Back at the bottom a pair of heavy lads in training, taking it in turns up and down the concrete steps, and on my way a steady churn of passing joggers and runners doing their circuits. It felt desultory. I walked and felt into it, a pair of ducks on a floating branch in the Bayou, calmly casting their doubles, Greta the Egret needling her way through the trees and onto the water, landing always just out of site, the empty benches, I go to the top of the grassy knoll and look out over the park, its grey and getting wetter. Still people about, I see the birds have been feasting and pecked the flesh out of the apples, I go to the oak and stand under her branches and it’s beautifully calm, an embrace, and again I see the music of her branches against the sky and the valley below, its a real hug without even touching.
