A Communion With Nature

To the woods, they say, these sons of mine,

aged nine and seven.

We have been before, once

even at night to walk in darkness

with only the moon and the thrill of

our beating hearts for company.

Sometimes I am tempted to give them a

breadcrumb trail, but I think they know

the way home, though if it should happen

they did not and got distracted,

birds might eat the bread.

My heart…my heart at the thought of it.

The pits, they shout and set off running.

It is a ritual they have, communing not so much

with nature as with the spirits of young men

who scrambled up steep sided trenches into war.

They race each other up the slopes,

I scramble and they haul me up the final yards.

Oh, the wild laughter.

My heart…my heart  at the sound of it.

The thread of molecules between us

pulls me after their young legs, the beauty of

knees marked with dirt and algae.

There is a fallen beech tree,

a swallet hole casualty.

The earth between its roots is useful

weaponry, clumps hard as metal;

it is for these they have come.

Chalk and clay grenades are flung

at tree trunk targets, or at the boulder

we are always surprised to find there,

standing sentinel between the heathland

and the wood.

The plosive sound of shattering earth

as the mark is hit matched by the huff and

whoop of their delight. They dance.

My heart…my heart at the sight of it.