April mist

I wrote this a few days ago.  A bit late for a spring equinox poem, but it's really a friendship-poem anyway, easily as much as a season's one.

April mist

April the first, and a thick mist

Lying close in the Thames valley.

Birds sing unseen above me

And the towers hide their heads.

Trees are fixed ghosts, and traffic

Is ghosts that move.

I cross the bridge, walking away

From one mystery and into

The next.

If you, my friend, were just

A hundred steps ahead of me

I would not know

That you were there.

And perhaps you are.

Perhaps you too are walking

Quiet in the quiet mist

Between two mysteries.

I cross the bridge, as you

Have done, or will do soon.

One would not know, looking out

That there are islands here;

Even the river itself

Can barely be seen.

Still, I am crossing water,

Towards the invisible

Blackbird singing ahead,

Towards the hidden wonder,

And, maybe, to you.