Sonnet at Wakefield

Suddenly here I am with old friends.
Quite still they stand, and ring me round
as I sit in a park’s high ground
on a damp log as the day ends
quite, quite alone. Yet their voice sends
at intervals, a sweeping sound,
and syllables, strewn, lie all around.
In with that speech their tall shape blends.

This is a magic spot of sky
that takes the form of grass, logs, trees
and colours deepening, and I
at home among the centuries
of people lost in days gone by
who had, they tell me, friends like these.