Sunset

A free verse poem

I climbed our hill today,

I felt you, inhaled  you,

Heard you whisper in the wind

‘I love you.’

The clouds blazed,

Red as the roses you so loved.

‘Lonely up here, isn’t it?’

I turned.

The old man was kneeling,

Patting his terrier,

His face a bleak mask.

‘I used to come up here with my dear wife’ he said.

‘Lonely isn’t a place’ I told him

‘Lonely lives in the soul.’

A tear leaked down his creased face,

He nodded, turned and left.

I wept into the setting sun.