Embraced

I’ve come again to the head of the dell,
to the old elm and the ancient boulder.
A fine rain is falling, yet I like this place well –
although why, I can’t say. And still the tree holds
the itinerant stone like a caring mother:
for though the tree is old, a low good limb
tight loops the rock as though to press it to her.
The stone has settled in, become a fosterling –
especially as the pair sport matching quilts
of thick mosses, a luxuriant green cover
embellished now with bright, butter yellow coins
the elm’s released in this wet October
twilight. An old elm log – at least traces
of it – rots into the earth beside me
swamped in swathes of seeding dog’s mercury
that burrs and clings to my coat, clots the laces
of my boots… In heavy earth-scent rising
I am one with the rain, rock and tree. This
is refuge where I stand quiet in a strange bliss…
The only sound the drip, drip of rain falling
from elm leaves over me…