No map

Our hands are pressed together

on the moss-thick trunk 

of the ancient tree that makes us want to cry. 

We've walked miles on this trip,

but it also feels like we've gone miles

to meet each other.

Just a handful of years, forty or so.

You understand the majesty in touching a tree like this.

You can feel its hum and history too,

its magical and its human-ness.

We're standing on the cusp of Cornwall.

The sign right behind us says Welcome to Devon!

A field of ferns and yellow irises makes us stop. 

Tiny black lambs dart.

We hold posies of things we find beautiful -

ferns, a twig encrusted with lichen,

a fallen rhododendron flower that's a bowlful of ice cream.

In two days, real life will nag us home.

But I just want to follow acorn-etched wooden signs with you,

no map, just wherever they take us -

to slip through woodlands so green it makes you blink.

To walk down lanes at dusk and feel the flit of bats above us.

To wake in dewy fields with the good kind of silence.

To stand next to busy streams just to listen to their song,

watching them splash up tiny diamonds against the rocks;

I'll catch one in my hand, and give it to you.