Driving home on the M5
February 2022
Driving home on the M5 I am transfixed by beauty,
Pinned through the chest like a butterfly in the glass case of my van
By the sunset sky flaunting itself behind the Malverns.
I want to nudge you and point and say "Look!
Look how beautiful it is and how huge!
Look how the lavender purple of the hills is a brush stroke against the peachy-pink sky!
Look how the poplars there, and four gulls — there, there! — push their intricate calligraphy into the painting!
Look how the beauty is bigger than us, bigger than the hills, bigger than the horizon can hold!"
I want to share the awe and thrill with you
And for a moment I hang in the space above yearning,
Teetering and tiptoeing that heartbreak line where the sublime meets melancholy.
Just a moment,
And then the warmth of evening sun breaks over me
And the answering warmth of love stirs in my belly
And I smile,
Glad that when I see beauty I think of you,
Glad that we will be together not now but soon,
Glad that the world will not run out of beautiful things.
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About me
I'm an Anglo-Irish web developer, father of five, company director and (evidently) a poet of sorts.
My inspiration comes from the beautiful Cotswold countryside I inhabit and explore,
the intricate mysteries of the people I have loved, and the daily miracle of being a living, breathing,
always changing consciousness – a point of view through which the universe looks upon itself.
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