She watched Jess kick the leaves in scattered abandon.
Screaming with joy as she chased their golden lab through the park,
pushing leaves in front of her, like an Alaskan train in snow.
The red and golden veil, daubed as if by an old master’s brush,
shifted like a sheet in the wind.
It was one of those days that opened misty
but cleared to one left over from summer,
feeling so special for coming late.
The sun had lowered causing shadows to stretch out as if trying to escape.
Overhead, there were thousands of starlings of murmur in silhouetted ballet,
dancing across the blue-red sky.
The park, once the grounds of a hospital built
to accommodate the ‘lunatics’ of another era,
provided sanction from the madness which had now entered her life.
She watched the small groups,
lost in chat, walk in clockwise rotation,
carefree, their world still turning.
Young mothers, swung with their babies, strollers at peace.
One old couple, wrapped arm in arm, stood and smiled.
The walkers now seemed familiar on their third lap.
She looked back over the road. She hadn’t told Jess yet.
How do you tell a five year old.
Three months he’d said.
Jess pulled at her arm, in hunger, finally getting attention, “Please Mum”.
“Ok love”
It looked and felt much like autumn,
but she knew it was much later.
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