49 going on 50

"The automatic time delay feature gives the operator about 20 seconds in which to move into the photo"

Too much grey immensity

Of sky, l'd say,

Weighing down shoulders

And cutting off

Our nether parts ......

Well, what did you expect

Given we all had wanted

To be in the frame

After thirty years away?

This need, itself,

Had caught us unawares

No time to pose

Formally

To show how high we'd climbed

Up the valley.

A lying camera

Had fixed essentially

What we hadn't seen.

That staring

Straight into infinity

Expectantly, it seems, betrayed

Relief at where we'd reached

Some firmness and resolve

And just a hint of

A bewilderment

At what might happen next.

Or maybe not.

At least we knew

From looking at the map

That soon, the path would peter out,

That it was time to go back down

The way we'd come,

To reach our starting point.

Mull, July,1998