It took some time, but they finally arrived, the thoughts leading me to hope again.

Here in the cold on a damp bench, water flows and ducks preen, and people walk past hand in hand.

I would gladly share this space, and yet I am gladly alone, I just am and they just are, and somewhere someone exists to sit beside me.

But now the flocks circle. And the traffic flows. Layers of sound like soft bandages wrapping my ears.

The birds. The cars. The voices. The laughter of children. Of men and women. Distant music. The rhythmic scraping of meandering soles on gravel paths.

I am trusting more and more in an ascending simplicity, spiralling out, perhaps, to a basic spiritual singularity.

Shall I name it? I do not dare.

For it exists between the soft wrappings of sound, in the spaces between things we can name.

Cold day. Damp bench. Alone.

It sits here, next to me.