I’m picking smoothed stones from wet autumn leaves
While you find the right bark to make armour,
The trees around us stand and sway with the breeze
Next to me, you always seem calmer.

We play as badgers, as wrens, as eagles,
We’re friends and that’s enough for me.
Then our engines blast out blackened diesel
Through the horse-tracked paths that run behind trees.

Streams around us splutter and cough, I smile
We fill up bottles and drink in the day.
We see light fade and just stop for a little while,
But as the sun drowns we go our dusty ways.

Until the next day where we’re us again
Where we can breathe and live in falling leaves,
To turn our backs and count paces ten
Mock fire and fall into the arms of trees.


Alone in the city I’d always dream of you and play with those memories,
I'd pray for those splashing streams to find my face,
and I'd wait for the day you’d be there to treasure wasted time.
But those autumn days never went their autumn ways
and you were never really there to begin with.