An Autumn Night

All light of day had bleached out into hours past.
As I walked home, my newspapers all delivered,
the street lights created expanded globules in the thin mist.
I squinted, childishly pleased at making the lights blur,
a trick I had learned whilst staring at the coloured twinkles
adorning tinsel wrapped Christmas trees.

People were arriving home from their day's work,
locking car doors, hurrying inside and, drawing their curtains.
Shutting in their radiator warmth, their cosily dimmed light.
Sitting down slippered, to dinner and television and chatter.

Winding down, as the clock crept so unnaturally slow towards closing,
a small cafe provided a haven from the saturated gloominess outside.
The yellow glow from within, was reflected on the damp pavement.
Walking past, I could hear the soft clink of plates being washed.

In the window, I caught a glimpse of a couple as they sat lingering over cups of tea.
They held hands, their arms stretched across the brightly coloured,
cheerful check of the waxed tablecloth. Their eyes were locked on one another,
conducting an intense conversation without words.

They formed a small island of love and caring in a grey world of dampness.
The sight of them and the cafe added to my own store of contentment.
There was something deeply pleasing about the gradually dying dusk
And its inability to conquer the light.