Pointless Paths.

I stood on the lane this evening and looked at the sycamore tree that stands on the far side from my garden. The sun had set, but the western sky blazed on the horizon and cast an almost lurid glow on the yellowing leaves so that they appeared a rich shade of gold. It seemed like only yesterday that I had stood on the same spot in May, glorying in the fresh green growth. I felt that this year had passed from promising spring to the faded grandeur of autumn without an intervening period of life.

I have hardly a memory of this summer. Never was a summer less memorable. The only prominent recollection is of sitting in the village hall talking to the lady from the valley, and waving goodbye to her when I left, and thinking I could see in her manufactured smile a look that said ‘I don’t really want to be here,’ and wondering whether it meant instead ‘I really don’t want to know you,’ and how can I tell, and does it matter?

And now that two autumns are coinciding and recollections of summers fading, I still wonder who I was, and who I am, and who she is, and who she will be when the wild wind blows my own ashes to the four corners of wherever they will be scattered. It’s an idle and pointless muse, of course, because as the man said:

The paths of glory lead but to the grave

And isn’t that ever the way with paths – never to lead anywhere? There is only the view to be had from them.