Hanging on

I am watching the afternoon dissolve.

The light is fading. The trees and shrubs, the borders and paths, the fences and lawns are merging softly into one another. The last, muted. copper rays of the sun are reflected back briefly and wistfully in the leaded windows of the old summer-house.

I am in my quiet study. The ancient central heating pipes are complaining moodily beneath dark oak floorboards. The melancholy music recently playing has stopped. The absence of piano, violin and guitar has left an almost holy stillness.

Like a church hushed for prayer.

Despite myself, despite my promises to me, I am thinking of you. I have let your presence slide gently into the gathering gloom. I hear the faintest echo of your laughter. I catch your scent lingering like a sigh.

Both, of course, are impossible.

I feel a need to write something for you. A poem to send. Words to make you remember. And perhaps to regret.

But I know I won’t.

I will simply sigh and switch on the desk lamp. I will banish the ghosts and shadows and pale dancers to the sudden darkness that will press at my window.

Yet just for a moment I will sit here.

Hanging on.

Until I can bear to let you go.

.

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© the author writing as Romantic Dominant

 Art by Anne Magill