Lost

Now that you’re away I sit
in the garden on sunny days
dipping into mythologies.
That suits my mood.
Today, bees are saturating the air
with the hum of satisfaction.
They poke blindly into blossoms,
back out, fat-full. The old dog
sleeps at my feet. He lifts an ear
just high enough, opens an eye
just wide enough to let the black cat,
mincing through the long grass, know
that he is choosing to ignore it.
A butterfly draws my eye skywards
as she flits tipsily up and over
the Buddleia, leaving me adrift
with a lost cloud in the wide blue
like Odysseus himself, losing
his bearings while returning
from the Trojan business,
sailing in Mediterranean circles,
struggling to find the homeward route.