the light in a beech wood, in early summer, one of my favourite things
decanted through leaves… eerie, enchanting, a lucid nuance of green
a day of showers, the gloom of grey clouds, then the brief abrupt hurtle of rain
nowt but patter drops neath the canopy, summoning this moist rummage of smells
a wind that shivers through leaves, the sharp sun… mottled, flicker, butterfly shadows
as with heaney:
‘The riverbed, dried-up, half-full of leaves.
Us, listening to a river in the trees.’
far far in friston forest, on a weekday afternoon, nobody at all
but the tweet and foible of bird song… near, far, high, low… layered, grooved, vertigo of a constantly shifting perspective
a temperate Rain Forest, this blessed land
oh and climbed an ash on the way back (that ash, lol x)
foot braced against one of its tentacles, could feel the subtle strength, the vibrations as the long bough gently writhed in the wind
i’ve been dreaming of ash trees and long barrows the last few weeks (long burgh nearby, above alfriston)
much as it was in the neolithic? huge swathes of trees, the occasional glimpse of a view
stone age, yes, yet always fashioning with wood
much work… the scouring of hides, tending of crops, chopping of trees, chiding of beasts!?… yet also space to dream
there would be summer festivals, gathering of the clans, time to swap, to gossip, flirt, dance, feast
shell fish, nettles, sea weed, deer
ha, mead and magic mushrooms… the pulse of a song summoned from the drum, heartbeat of the land
sitting around the fire, hound at your feet, telling your story, a piece for the whole
across the the circle, caught in the fire glow, the eyes of the one you love
much has changed, and, yet, somehow, nothing at all
…………
prose typically waywardly lush, but a way of putting off household chores!
…. aw thinking of phil, must be a year x
