A day out with the day

A day out with the day

It began at the grassy car-park
in the village green.

I wanted to treat the day ahead
with a day out. All of its own.
So we walked along the Wasdale valley
together towards the sea, turned left when
she asked to cross the road. 

               This way? Sellafield.
The other? The end of every Cumbrian
road. And that way leads back home.

I wanted to raise the consequences
of tomorrow, but she wasn’t up for that.
Today was for her, and was her, and wasn’t
going to be her, right enough, forever.  

I said, for want of knowing her any better:
be aware of gossipmongering sunshine.
She said: bear me children, and continue.

 In 200m, at the edge of our peripheral vision,
the world dropped off the side of itself more
dramatically even than yesterday.  

We didn’t choose that path
and it didn’t choose us either.

 Instead we turned our heads towards each
other, as if to kiss, and follow through.
The mood dropped lower than the tide line
on the pebbled beach that we’d arrived upon.

We had no ice creams.
And no umbrella with whose tip to pierce
the approaching front of weather up ahead.

Bear up, she said. And take the easy way.
The come-down will be like nothing else,
and nothing more.

A definitive view of now I couldn’t quite
unhandle. Crossing all the roads and bridges
when you continue them?

 She stepped into the sea, then, and asked
me if I’d join her. I shook my head, and mumbled
my goodbyes. Later on, today, she’d be America’s.