Kind

Why is it so hard to be kind to one another
        day after routine day, to keep
                in mind how mission creep
risks turning lovers slowly into strangers

who’ve forgotten the wake-up call, the thrilling sense
        of potential opening, the shock
                of glimpsing the key to the lock
of our prison doors – to life without pretence,

to the layer of magic surely just below
        the surface of the world, the beat
                of being, the balance sheet
which claims two can come out as one, and grow?

But out for a walk today, we paused to watch
        two grizzled horses in a field,
                initially concealed
in shadows cast by trees, for a moment torched

in a shaft of sunlight, statuesquely still
        then rearing suddenly, to go
                into a gallop, as though
out of sheer joy, pacing side-by-side until

stopping and nuzzling each other. Surprised, I found
        we were holding hands, Home now
                it seems we’re both somehow
calmer, gentler, as though we too were bound

in a union the years have left intact –
        however judged against would-be
                truant intensity.
Could it be that this is happiness, unpacked?

Tom Vaughan


If you have any thoughts about this poem, Tom Vaughan  would be pleased to hear them