365 Ways With Words

A Nip In The Air

                                                By mid-September thin light burrows

                                                Upon a goosed skin, upping the caress –

                                                The last wind of a high-minded summer –

                                                On the curling whisps is carried 

                                                A glowering nip in the air

                                                Light brush of divine winter death

 

                                                A crack in the sky bowl permits

                                                Demons and devil to whip all access to mercy

                                                Sewing heartless seeds in dust, unfolded misery

                                                Deep down beneath the glacier's binding

                                                Iced out, iced in, iced on

                                                Freeze still, and move no more

 

                                                Have all memories of our summer perished?

                                                Fears proud and timid poked the living to a still?

                                                Or are there bulbs yet beneath the chilling

                                                Ready-steadying to a new triumph?

                                                Breasted milk sap of comfort arise

                                                Take full the draught and let long light lead

Sweet Apples

                                            The scent of sweet apples roams

                                            September’s yielding rain-soaked skin

                                            A transient softness full of hard nose

 

                                            Black mulch mud proudly boot sole sticks

                                            Committing witless with wind-crept aridity

                                            An imprint baked firm dry to remain

 

                                            But such intensity is purloined on the rot

                                            Such richness arced in apple weeks

                                            On and on until to soil they are returned

 

                                            And so are all footfalls set down

                                            Awaiting a raindrop’s destructive power

                                            Or the windly ministrations days ahead

Breath of Easterly Wind

 

                                                    Starlight dimly leads upon a perilous path

                                                    Long before, the silent cows hear noisy footfalls approach

                                                    So softly around I ginger, their calm presence is felt

                                                    A warm sweetness rings their rest

                                                    Homely, but a pressing hour approaches

 

                                                    Skystretch thin and mute

                                                    In gradients grow particulates on the earthturn schedule

                                                    Too late, these sleepless clumsy feet scrabble up scree

                                                    The full light has come

                                                    It glareburns upon the shimmering waves

                                                    Along the eastern coast far from eyes but mine

                                                    No fishing boat or trawler's wake

                                                    Empty of bulk and tankers beyond

                                                    This July hour is partnerless

                                                    Solely me, the dogs, the swifts and dragonflies, the sun

                                                    All clouds are coy this morning

                                                    Not a breath of easterly wind

                                                    This is the moment

 

                                                    Last drops in hand, all water drained

                                                    The canine pair know where to go

                                                    Down, along a perilous ridge to trees

                                                    Too quick they are, and rightly so

                                                    I find them basted in the stream

                                                    Beside a bull under spider canyon

 

                                                    Long are the music waves on a pristine beach deserted

                                                    Dryads and Oceanids cavort and win me

                                                    Into cleansing tumbles my nakedness is won

                                                    And for a time there is a single entity

                                                    The crystalline peace

                                                    A totality in union

                                                    Before breakfast at the café

May Snow

It's Maytime and the weather is now fine – glorious full sun days that ought to be spent with pleasant company in the park, by the river, at the lido. Of course, most of the poor souls not in further education or enjoying self-employment cannot afford to drop the reins just to enjoy a spot of loitering in public places (unless they throw a 'sicky'). But for the lucky free ones, these days are so good that they really must be enjoyed to the full. Within the parks clusters of merry students have sprung up, each gathered around a guitarist, or some other attractor, a bottle or two of best Moravian red at their disposal. These will be the best days of their life, and should not be begrudged.

Elsewhere in the sun-baked fields and beside the muddy rivers grow the poplars and willows, the hallmarks of the European countryside. Their wispy seeds are taken by the wind and cast in sleety clouds across the landscape, lying like summer snow upon the grass, collecting in vast clumps as drifts. These soft forms – so light – take fairy flight, but find their wafted ways to clothes, hair and nose.

May snow, so far from season, falls like the broken heart, blown left and right by winds beyond its power. Filling the lows of the landscape, it clogs the simpering pathways for a time, but, who knows, perhaps after the deluge it will be gone.

Paschal Lamb

They sat together – waiting expectantly for it. But not having asked for it, they were both not quite sure how to bring it up on this social call between compliments over the house and the visit to the reading room. Between them they could feel each other's hearts joyfully beating away, even though they didn't touch – indeed couldn't. Social convention being what it is, snogging in polite company, even in the house of a friend, is usually frowned upon. They didn't even look at each other much, at first feeling a little awkward. The young girl, beloved child of the psychic and her husband, played in their midst, gleefully spoilt by the newcomer’s attentions, and charmingly showed her best toys and drawings. Do you feel it? I know; I can feel it too.

 

Tea and cake was served as a matter of courtesy: the baranek was sliced. A Czech speciality in the shape of a lamb, the sacrificial Christ, baked especially for Easter; its moist vanilla crumbliness was easily devoured, the signifier of new life. The recipe was also devoured. Ooh, so light, so sweet.

 

Without the need of a second word of encouragement, she ran to fetch them. "I will read them for you, but first you must tell me, what question will you ask?" What question will I ask?

 

On their way there, they passed mad spring hares, ears up and listening in the hearty breeze – ever attentive, ever aware. Within the surreal green centres of the wide open fields, legless resting deer gracefully sat in gentleness and love. A double 'v' of geese honked across the sky, low enough to find happiness in the little things and to delight in the details. As they sped along, and as clear as could be, a crane walked nonchalantly beside the road, observing and supporting their progress, aiding them to discern and express themselves with eloquence. They talked, as humans do, about themselves, about the minutiae of lives and the things of the day. This trip was another chance to get to know each other, but in their head they considered if they were genuinely compatible, or were merely being overly nice to each other, full of the wonder of love. Would reality be harsher? Might their feelings fade like sunlight at the end of the day? If things went wrong in their new relationship, the greatest risk would be that they’d be left merely grasping two tickets on board the Titanic, and that no one would escape the upcoming impact: after all, it sits dead as can be at the bottom of the sea and will never see the light of day again. Gentleness and love.

 

The gypsy split the cards, and hastily assembled them into three smaller decks. "First, you must select the cards you want without touching them." She touched the top card. "WITHOUT touching them!" The top card was hurriedly placed at the bottom of a pile. She indicated, properly this time – then again and again. Without touching.

 

She eagerly read, each card drawing the communication onwards. Her enthusiasm became infectious. Yes, this person. Without doubt. Without hesitation.

 

"And would you like yours read?"

 

He readily agreed. He hadn't come all this way for nothing, not even cake and polite conversation.

 

"The question?"

 

"The same."

 

She nodded, sweeping aside her surprise, as if the one answer would have been enough, and went through the same process.

 

He took care to select the right decks, weighing each choice as if it was a cosmic decision.

 

Yes, this person. Without doubt. Without hesitation.

 

And then they were put away as quickly as possible. Good. Simple. Unequivocal.

 

They took a walk up the hill to view the land above the Moravian village, passing gurgling streams filled with notes from Janáček's On the Overgrown Path. The little girl chatted the burbling bird chatter of new-found friendship and trust whilst her father happily kept her focused. Across the bright fields the wind blew down from the blue in artful gusts. They didn't hold hands, still aware of convention, still unsure, and only just bearing the polite conversation. Between the apple trees could be spied a little hut, the old log cabin kind, nestling beside contour rows of spring vegetables and long winter grass. There was no one home. Still unsure.

Every few metres he would touch her – the small of her back, her arm, her side. It was as natural as drinking water or breathing. The four of them turned back down towards the village where the locals were happily tending to gardens, cleaning porches and pavements for the long-awaited onset of summer. Day-old ducklings cheeped around their busy mother in the mill race and everywhere the hurried approach of the season lifted the spirits. Once back at the house, and behaving properly like good Czechs, they shook hands and said their goodbyes. The Easter lamb, roasting in the new kitchen, permeated the air. As natural as drinking water.

Driving slowly back, they again saw hares and deer, just where they had been before: but they are, after all, everywhere in the countryside. Was the answer right? Were they compatible, or was this merely puppy love? On the opposite side of the road the crane stood still, almost a discoloured plastic flamingo model, holding one leg up. Its protective vigil, warning of the necessity to maintain the senses, tempted a kiss from her. He beamed: "Thank you – that was lovely." She removed her shoes and pulled her stockinged feet beneath her, rubbing his neck with a warm softness that spoke only of the future, and a future of long-awaited happiness. She put her bag down in the footwell and out fell her address book, on the very page upon which she had written the recipe. I'll make this – I'll make it for him, she happily thought, putting the book back and returning to support the person about whom it was becoming clearer and clearer and clearer. That was lovely.

Spring Has Sprung

So finally, between rain-soaked days and bright gusty mornings, a change is happening. The mantel with which the natural world is overspread is definitely, and daily, switching hue: spring is here. Sap is rising, flowers have risen, grass is verdant, birds are nesting, and out in the fields hares are jumping like mini-deer – and the dogs go berserk!

The darling buds of March, plum and wild cherry, such negligible and incidental things in the eyes of many, are beginning their slow burst, breaking winter's back with the happy strength of sunlight. Calyx of catkins are dropping to reveal the green bottle brush thrust – a shameless sexual move. Under the feet the grass roots are taking up where they left before the snows and new green –bright delicious sensual green– is filling flawless leaves that tremble in fresh breezes.

Rivers are high and muddy, full of old branches swiftly taken down to the swollen lakes and beyond. Even the cloying clumps of pathway mud have a different smell – alive again to greet the new blue of the year. From out of such is growing violets, their colours stunningly free.

Now, apart from the poor slave-driven bees, only the red firebugs are out, mindlessly mating as they colonise even more, but within days the hungry ladybirds, dozy caterpillars and gadding mayflies will show themselves: a boon for the blue tits, their presence welcomed as the necessary linchpin in the wheel of life.

And what do we humans do? We graffiti the trees!

Happy Equinox!

Yesterday, Thursday 20th March, was the vernal equinox. This is the day when night and day are exactly 12 hours each. Of course, that means 12 hours from sun-up to sundown, not actual light in the sky. For several days round these here parts it has been getting light at around 5:30-ish and, as the year rolls on, this lightness is set to break earlier and earlier until mid-summer's day when it barely gets dark between extended bits of twilight.

Without getting into the ins and outs of tilted planet Earth, the term vernal refers to the points on the celestial sphere within which the sun is rising, i.e. on the cusp of Aries, and is therefore more appropriate within an astrological discussion. This term is surely better than a 'spring' or 'March' equinox because of its flowery connotations.

Equinoxes have always been important and various religious festivals have been associated with it. Lady Day roughly coincided with the equinox, as does the Thai Songkran and the Parsi Nowruz, each being the beginning of the year for the respected traditions. The day and night in equal measure, have a auspicious significance that affects the religious sensitivities of many. It was also celebrated in the Abrahamic religions, with the Jewish Passover falling on the first full moon after the equinox, and the Christian Easter, that moveable feast, more or less falling at a similar time. In pagan Scandinaia a dísablót, a sacrificial feast, was –and is still– held in honour of the valkyries!

Well, whatever you did, and however you did it, I hope you had a pleasant equinox – only another 6 months until the next one.

Winter Fruit

                                        Under the plum trees stripped bare

                                        Lies Sarah's child

                                        Wasted late life caste down dropped –

                                        Winter fruit for spores

 

                                        Helplessly permitting the sonorous wealth

                                        Of beaten wind and cold night rain

                                        Driven further into the orchard grassy bed –

                                        Featureless crypt, an enduring rest stop

 

                                        No memory marks the hare's passing

                                        In this natural season the gates of life swing 

                                        A wholesome hope beyond infantile culture –

                                        Bells ring out across the fields

 

River Ice – the video

Something different for today.

 

                                Through town and out beyond

                                Run rivers in clear, slow death

                                Day’s meagre heat leaves all earth and sky:

                                Life saps, saps still, to a blue glaze

 

                                Softly starts the solid stock

                                Locks a hardened skin

                                Such flimsy bergs

                                Slide to can-crush crunch

                                Barely a whisper – a frozen breath

                                And back-up, up, up

 

                                Further and higher it is clear

                                For the present

                                But inch by hoarded inch

                                Blocks collide for the new cold road

                                A cliché of life’s accumulators;

                                Decline, stiff still meanderings, folly and sense.

 

                                On either rime-reeded side

                                White-formed siege platforms hold fast

                                Until loud above the water’s ice-dropping course

                                It snaps

                                Echoing from the bank’s shelf

                                And drops itself onto the mud edge

                                Leaving cubes dangling

 

                                Old Man, Old Father, Old

                                Softly laid, rageless, bare head

                                Form of winter’s form –

                                Watcher and waiter allowing

                                How much it must it knows not

                                And cares less

                                Clasped in its channel

                                For dead days and nights

                                Until the sun’s imperious nod

Dirty Snow

On dim. On blue. On cold.

Settled stipple the quiet night through

Crowded car top patches frozen up

Crinchy-crunch down

–Delight–

Perceivers by smoke headlit waits at lights

As fell foots fall on white, white, white...

 

Work pulls, drear demand,

On school runs mums safety

Passing chaos energy. And back.

Inhales of sharp smart sparkler

Dog poo park steam

On silver-edge maple leaves curl

–Pattern–

Shoe heel cuff crush

 

Melty dark on tread tyres passing

Blattercast left, blithercast right,

Until greying frowns line each road, lane, avenue,

The sunless cliffs in tectonic ribs unseen

Drain. Drain down. Drain off.

Darker than weightiest clouds,

–Gone–