Fallen Leaves

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There was soft warm-scented air as we across walked the grounds of Hever Castle.

The place is a delight.

There were no guides to harry you through the rooms and you could walk and stand and stare at whatever caught your eye until you had seen it for what it was.

A musician played a variety of ancient songs on a lute guitar, his notes falling down into the Great Hall, and later as we reached the upper rooms his melodies chased down long corridors where children once ran.

He played, ‘She Moves through the Fair,’ and it seemed all the more poignant in such a place.

We were lucky. The weather was warm and mild, and the day was sunny.

Outside, there were ducks and fish to feed, mazes to explore, and finally we took the last boat out onto the boating lake.

A grebe vanished into the depths of the waters, and a heron stretched its neck in the reeds. The setting sun was dazzling and a fat white moon rose above the autumnal trees like a child’s grotesque paper lantern.

We were the last boat on the stillness of the lake, as the shadows fell upon the pavilion, circling and circling a fallen leaf floating on the water.



The Leaf

An oak leaf cast down from the lofty king of trees,
Discarded,
Stained,
Red in colour from its beheading;
Floats.
Momentarily caught on the meniscus.

Just a leaf floating,
Like Anne Bullen’s memory;
Held by faint report,
Of slander and flattery
By the water's bond.

Sailing above
The drowning depths,
Of mud and oblivion.
Under rising mists,
A pocked-white-faced paper moon,
And a setting sun.

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