Walking North (first time in a while), the place is overrun with redwings and wrens.
Tens of wrens.
More wrens than round robins.
Not a goldcrest to be seen, but a couple of tree creepers. And nuthatches were heard.
On the way, I saw a crow with white in its wings,
on my return a jackdaw with white highlights along its finger bones, like a flying skeleton bird.
I fell asleep again at five, imagined dialogue fading in my mind, ideas to write.
Awoke nearer nine, strident light of a frosty morn oosing through the weave of my dark curtains, gold and silver; pleats of smoked mackerel skin.
Now I close my eyes for meditation's visions, to find an auditorium of folding chairs in a tornado.
Clatter, clatter.
On Wednesday, I found myself driving out past the custard maple, to find her in full Birds made with full-fat milk glory.
Now the visitors have left, the forest has lit up with autumnal splendour. The beasts have grown new coats. Mud is back in fashion.
With Andras Schiff rattling out Book I in the old Decca recording as a background, I washed a few soapy bowls this morning entirely by touch, my eyes transfixed by a jay raiding for apple scraps in the garden.
I added an extra layer for my walk yesterday, to the scarf that's been back on duty for a month.
I adopted a pet rock from Devon last week. On the window sill, it suddenly looks like a shark.
I have a pet mosquito,
who comes each night to feed.
I'll fetch a rolled up newspaper,
to teach him* how to read.
* yes, I know.
What is this new thing: rain?
Saturday's puddles, perfect planes of sharp refraction;
Baked mud trapped under airless crystal.
Now summer is stored:
The ponies' fat, the squirrelled seeds; berries shout 'come hither',
Insect larvae burrow and dive, ready for winter's sloth.
Autumn is getting on her glad-rags.
Dry April; cold, wet May, have held back thoughts of summer. Nature compensates with the arrival of sunshine, of the twenties. New life is unveiled. Donkey foals, a small copper, a broad boddied chaser. Plant roots, still sitting in May's sump, throw out flowers, bursting in all colours. Second broods are replacing earlier failures. The air is full of cries.
I'd lounge on the lawn, but the noise of the grass growing is too loud. It's time for planting, for weeding; loam under the nails and scratched knuckles.
