Beyond The Gate

The creaky old back gate,

I should really fix it up.

Beyond it,

Darkening trees and their twilight shadows.

Beyond them,

An even darker path, disappearing into black, long before it was night.

I probably shouldn’t stand here every night.

I didn’t give anything much concern,

Life was now something to endure.

Still,

I did notice something,

Did I, that second guess.

I think I did.

As dismissive as I was lately,

As much as I tried, this wouldn’t be ignored.

But was there really something there.

Life had become something to endure,

Not live,

Endure.

Days arrived and left without really touching me.

I moved through them more as though a ghost now had me.

For my child’s sake I got up.

For my child’s sake I smiled.

For my child’s sake I kept moving.

But I had stopped looking ahead, I stopped really feeling much at all.

So what is that I feel most nights now.

For my child deserves better,

For my child I deserve better,

For my child we both do.

Another evening,

The gate creaks,

A bit falls off this time, leaving part of it scraping the ground now.

Beyond it,

The trees seem closer, heavier but standing as guardians casting protective shadows.

Beyond them,

Didn’t seem to matter much,

I don’t think.

Surely the dog would let me know if there was really something here, wouldn’t he.

That’s when I felt it,

He didn’t even pause his routine sniffing around.

Not a sound.

He’s blissfully unaware for one who insists at barking at the wind.

Not a voice,

I’ve lost sight of him through his favourite bushes.

A presence.

A presence almost also just beyond the edge of sight.

It has to be just the trees,

Only trees,

Only shadows behaving as shadows should.

Yet something remained.

The sensation of being watched,

Of something almost as if it’s with you.

Not hunted,

Watched.

I turned and jumped out of my skin,

The dog.

But he was sat, content on where I had just been staring,

A subtle wag of his tail, met my eyes and held them for a moment,

Then went inside,

Leaving me,

Leaving me grounded entirely in goosebumps.

Night after night it returned,

When grief was the loudest,

When exhaustion hollowed me out.

When I stood wondering if there was anything left to save.

Always there,

In front of me, beside me,

Not one space exactly,

But many.

Patient.

As though it knew something I did not.

Something in me did, the part I thought was a ghost now.

I still cannot explain it all,

Only this –

When I finally stopped searching for it with my eyes,

I began feeling it everywhere.

And for the first time in a very long time,

I did not feel lost –

And that brought me peace.