A contented man

He stopped searching for happiness many years ago – when he realised he was content. He looks across the huge flat fields that surround us.  He is still mesmerised by each autumn’s soft-glowing calm, by the towers of straw bales that are stacked like churches and smell of summer; by the stretching, brushed-gold shadows.

“It was easy,” he smiles. “I just decided it was time to stop fighting the things I could not change; to let time and nature decide.”

Now he willingly surrenders every day, every hour; working alongside each autumn, each winter, spring and summer.

“You can’t fight nature,” he says. “She’ll bless you, curse you, throw all her might at you: destroy a week’s work in day. Yet you forgive her.

“You bless her when the sun warms your face on a cold day; you thank her for sending rain when the ground is dry as dust.”

He raises his head, forgetting the moment; forgetting I’m there.

And his pale, gentle eyes reflect the trailing drifts of cloud that stretch across the November sky.