The world turns regardless and it’s April again. Poetry month. I had forgotten until I saw Kerfe’s post. Here is day one, for NaPoWriMo or whatever the international version is called.

Two souls
I met no one today, met no human soul upon the lane or in the fields.
My feet walked, treading new grass and old remains of winter among new leaves, that pale fresh green of katydids.
I met only the wind, its curt, brusque bustle-past with muttered insults in my tingling ears, and I bowed my head, cheeks slapped red.
I met no soul but you, dog, brown and white hunting dog, let loose to exercise alone.
You burst from the woods, making no tongue, well-trained, and stopped, four feet sturdy on this hillside, braced against the wind and the movement of the earth.
No doubt you left havoc in your wake, among the new nestlings, martens and furtive pheasants, started hares, woke the sleeping deer.
A moment we paused, you in your Landseer pose, and I held out my hand.
The scent trailed, nose to fingertips, linking two worlds, buffeted by the wind on a grassy hillside.
Above, in a pale sky, pale clouds trailed.
You sniffed the air and trotted past, up the track. A skylark rose, beating against the gusts, then veered over the barley field. A white panache of tail fluttered on the brow of the hill, and bird and dog were gone.
The wind was a pair of robust arms, turning me about, pointing me home along the farm track and its scents of dog, bird, boar, badger, unseen to a mere human soul, dancing on the invisible air.