New Year’s Eve

A man came up the hill towards us, along the side of the field,
His dog shining beside him in the last light of the Year 2011.
A basket of rooks hung in an oak tree, instead of its missing leaves,
And fell out laughing as the dog went past and the moon rose.

As regards balance, nothing quite matches up to these kinds of days:
The wood-fire starting in the belly of the clouds, the stationary satellite opposite,
The rolling world and the invisible bronze galaxy sideways overhead,
The day’s door closing, the year easing shut like a hatch.

A man came up the hill towards us, along the side of the field,
Treading the same line he did a hundred years ago, or two hundred,
Which was during the Napoleonic Wars, and also the year of the Great Comet,
Unfortunately not scheduled to re-visit these skies until 4907 AD.

Sometimes you can stand just at the junction between farmland and heathland,
And the Scots pines a mile off will make it all look like Africa suddenly.
Everything’s made of chalk: moon, sky, geography; thoughts about thoughts.
Sometimes you can stand right at the line between now and afterwards.