Summer end

Summer end

These are halcyon days
The sun beams an almost infinite smile
Trees turn to gold
But leaves do not fall

We glide
Serene as swans on the loving lake
Down the avenue of ancient oaks and beeches
Like galleons of the line
Blown on a summer wind

Deforested fields beyond them
Tell of long gone victory
The felling of limbs and boughs and barks
On the far off Trafalgar sea

The Cotswold mansion before us
Has risen out of the spoils of that long gone war
Here and there we are planting trees again
Rooting for peace.

Then a jet plane screams out of a clear blue sky
We are instantly hacked
Out of this dreamland safety
Back to the obscenity of modern war.