barrie to newmarket via bradford (aka: don’t blink!):

a field of golden sunflowers

one lonely tree

a weeping willow standing guard

lamenting

stone rubble strewn amidst

the tall grass of fallow pastures

an old red barn

weather-beaten and collapsing

in on itself

while wide open blue skies

stretch on for ever

and white clouds drift by

unassuming

another place time has forgotten

like the small stone cemetery

hidden beneath the apple grove

fenced in by rusted iron

graves slanted from so many seasons

i am just a stranger passing through

in my wake, past and present momentarily

collide…

and in those endless seconds

there is no time

and then you blink

oh no, don’t blink!

your eyes refocus to find progress –

its sticky fingers reaching backwards and

ever forwards, stealing seconds

at a time

dirt roads paved and lined in gold

flow back into the city

like all rivers run into the sea

fields of grass and trees

fade into neat rows of glass and steel

and shiny green tractor ploughs,

and fertigation tanks to feed the soil

that no amount of blinking

can make disappear

you move on forwards, like the hands of a clock

passing by the endless homes

as the jets in the sky fly lower still

and you wish for a moment that

time would forget this place once again

but the memories of littered stone debris

remind you that time will leave you

behind soon enough