The trick is growing up without growing old

The light plays tricks with the leaves and the sun paints the valley. A lick of paint. A long lick of golden paint. The lone buzzard from the day before patrols the sky. Here on earth the dog I am with is happy. He has I am told a sense of smell to die for. He does not bark. Bark, however, splinters from the trees. Fast-flowing water mocks the stillness. Back in the house, as I walk, the artist is finishing her book on someone spiritually trying to find themselves. I find myself walking faster, the dog at the lead. But so successfully am I clearing my head, I do not know what to say. And yet I wish to acknowledge this freshness. I wish to witness the artist still relaxing. I wish to see the children playing like mountain people and their grandparents enjoying them. The dog pauses meanwhile and I examine a dying crane fly, or daddy long-legs. Its larvae will last the winter in the soil, if the crows or rooks don't get it. I see garden spiders by confident webs, capturing small flies. Ahead are gathering starlings. Here on this particular earth, there is no irony, no 21st century commentary. No spin. No heraldry even. Here the word sits unselfconsciously in its sentence and the full stop is always on time. We have no use of sub-text. There is no hidden agenda. There is no one person to vote for. No act of nature to veto. The dog tugs at the lead harder and I am off again, past the spot where I proposed to the artist. (I wonder if the character in her book has found herself yet.) As I approach the house and stare into the distance between to the sides of the valley, I am thinking that I was wrong, the light is not playing tricks with the leaves. Here, there are no tricks to play.