As good as it gets

Wind icy sharp down Waden Hill on winter's eve
blowing east towards stones long lost.
Faulkner's Circle the signpost said
but nothing there now other than a single standing stone
and a twisted pine and more shattered stones
slaughtered and strewn along the way.

We trekked glumly up to the round barrows there above
but such a degree of sadness hung upon every broken fragment
that we stopped halfway and turned
and plodded quietly back to road and waiting car.

Then laughing and gasping up Waden Hill
pausing at a badger's hole where we'd slipped and smiled once before.
And on past a flock of curious sheep (too timid really to be too curious)
into the wind at the top and the welcoming kiss of the long winter sun.

And there below
Silbury!
tucked safely away in its valley and dale.

We stood there a while and smiled
and wondered why Silbury was placed where it was
when it could have been set so much higher up.
But down there is the perfect place for a mystery
(though we don't really know why).

Later...
standing atop West Kennet on the shortest day
when a fingertips' embrace closed the circle of our destinies.
When life's shadows were as long as they were ever going to get
(this time around) and our chance at immortality
was just about as good as it gets.
Smiling... read a Jack Nicholson grin just here.

Then do you know that breathing in the low winter sunlight at that ancient place
that soul-set womb of our ancestors
wrapped all around by the comforting Downlands of Wiltshire.
Hand-in-hand again with one lost so long ago now found again
is where it's at and what it ever was all about.

Anon