Sanctuary

In the earlier years at least,
We’d lie in bed with martinis
Or picnic with port out
the back of a white Peugeot.

The martinis were gin dry,
ice floating and often spilled.
The port, raspberry sweet
and too sticky for the summer in it.

After the picnic we visited
the church, clambering down
a bank and into the nave.

A bus of tourists incoming,
their accents fatally nasal,
whisked us up past the choir loft
to the bell tower where
middle aged mid-westerners
without a whisper of warning
started humming. No tune
forming, only a constant
never-pitch-perfect but
nevertheless perfect pitch
that stopped commonly.

Lost in those years, suddenly
memory clears with the discovery
We recovered our breath only
back in the sanctuary.