Haibun – Cycle of Life

I am spending three days by  Derwent Water. I take the ferry from the town stop, on its circular journey around the small jetties. Hopeful clusters of people wait and wave as the ferry draws near, they want a lift back to the town stop. One jetty has a small sailing boat — the Slapwave Jack — moored there. What a wonderful name. The ferry journey feels hypnotic, the  chug- chug of the engine, briskness of the air, breathing deeply.

I walk beside by the lake, see autumn is beginning. I start to unwind from urban busyness, let the quietness seep into me. The Fells look down on us. I breathe in the scent of pine trees. The path is dry, ochre brown, then stones which crunch underfoot, half sunk into the sand of a little bay. I hear the soft slap of waves, and find a curved green bench looking over the water.

In the stillness of this place, I reflect on the two loves I have lost — husband and dog. I have scattered their ashes onto the earth. So they are part of the earth now, as I will be. There’s a resolution for me in that thought. And I realise that every time  I tell someone  ‘I had a husband’, ‘I had a dog’, the wheel of acceptance turns another notch.

Earth is home, holds our

separate joined selves in

perpetuity