I want to go back

by Margaret

I want to go back to everything as I left it:

Back to taste the carrot cake and quiche Lorraine, see a nuthatch dash in and out, to feed, and the noisy pheasant that struts about, making his presence known.

Back in Spring, to watch the geese fly north, like a string of broken pearls, observe a quiet sparrowhawk patiently waiting on the wire.

Back to smell orange lilies filling the dried-up pond, drink gin and tonic in rusted garden chairs, going indoors, when the sun goes in.

Back in Autumn, to cut back trees, collect the leaves in builders’ bags, before the relentless rain.

But there is no going back to the garden filled with granite stones, impossible to mow, a life constrained, a life of birds and leaves.