Walking a/way

In the Autumn of my Motherhood

The leaves are turning. 

Each leaf - a page in my daughter’s story. 



Soon, the leaves we’ve grown thus far together

Will lie fallen beneath our feet

As she creates her own path

Through the wilderness of our world. 

 

As she walks away, ahead of me, along The Drove, 

For the first time

I see a young Shepherdess, no longer my timid sheep.

Realisation pierces my bark-shielded heart, arrow-like;

Her independence will one day leave me

Obsolete. 



I shiver, 

My branches hanging bare,

Cold, through the childless Winters yet to come.



I curl up, under a mossy blanket, foetal, dream…



Thriving, not simply surviving;

Will her leaves grow with vigour

Once out, from the limiting shade of my canopy?

Or shrivel, without protection

From the unforgivable heat?



Will blossom adorn her, 

Bees swarm to her, 

Birds nest within her open branches

Producing a generation who'll return here too, someday?



Perhaps she will find pleasure, solace,

In her rich tapestry of leaf-shades

Come her Autumn years? 

Or perhaps she will crunch through them

In defiance for those pages of her life

Swept away by early storms;

Shredded before their time to glow, 

In this new climate of unpredictable sunshine.



Among these forebodingly-grey beech-like thoughts, 

A witness to my future fears stops,

Returns to the fold of my wool-fibred skirt,

And seeks out my hand, 

To walk with me a while longer… 



Hold on dear leaves,

Don’t let the wind blow too hard.

Too soon.


A Wensley
25/08/23