A Walk to Hestia's Temple

An aborted morning,

Dawn lost to mist,

We went ahead anyway,

With the walk,

A four miler planned weeks ago.

I waited first in the car park,

Muted by mist and mud,

But backlit by mellow torchlight,

waving on the branches,

Of a Gingko tree.

The family drew up,

Sister, brother, father, mother,

In a selection of toffees,

Mulberry, burgundy and grey.

Hats: flat and rounded,

First gloves of the season.

Greetings exchanged, the,

Dog set us off.

Sturdy ankle boots crushed,

The fragile open wounds of the grass.

Soon the clouds drowned,

The path we'd forced.

As we pushed onwards,

Emboldened by having,

Done this so many times before.

Only once had it,

Defeated us.

Circular trails through,

Fattening mist had led us,

Closer only to darkness.

But salvation in sighting,

The floating tower,

Had seen us home,

By the fire for tea.

Older and wiser, today holds,

Complacent ease.

Until one of us mentions barking,

In the distance,

Can you hear it?

No. Not yet.

It grows: the sound lengthening,

And stretching to tether all of us.

It wavers, holds,

The crisp, fat gunshot of a

Shot gun

Unanimous flight,

An unplanned narrative.

We leave the invading sounds,

In the bodiless mist.

Sure of where we are heading.

As sure as we are wrong.

Destination imperfect.

Soon I am among the Japanese maples.

Burning and bleeding.

Unashamed by the sky.

Unput-out-able.

I know we can find our,

Way back.

But I'm uncertain if,

We want to.

If I want to.

Perhaps it would be better,

To stay.

Enfold my fate with the,

Trees.

And be consumed.