Local Colour



Harvest machines squeeze the lanes, drag the cut maize to store. Maize grows fast and feral, it must be chopped fast, it is the kind of crop that might make a run for it.
It should be quiet then, down by the river, the field there is ploughed neat, lies waiting.
Butterflies: scraps of bombazine caught on thorny stems.
Brown earth, bared, corduroyed. Sky flows blue. In the hedge greens are vivid pips: the purplish sloes, the red hips.
Beyond, below, the river, the bigger river has eaten up all the rain.
Something slaps the water surface, unseen, unexplained.
At the edge, where Dog's swim sets a Mallard drake to wing, one bright thing, turquoise shining, faceted, flies panoramic.
Gorged eyes follow the field edge, the fatted twilled grass, the splay pattern seed tops. They find a spider, tucked in, patiently waiting to tuck in. It sits perfectly still for a photograph.
Brown deer, paused, cashmere. White bobs of buttock flee against the hedged green: leaves quiver.




Comments

  1. Suze17 October 2013 at 05:02

    'Butterflies: scraps of bombazine caught on thorny stems.'

    I have no idea what bombazine is but the poetry in this sentence is off the charts. (Applause. For the whole post. :))

    ReplyDelete
  2. Geo.17 October 2013 at 07:31

    You know, I read this twice, then once aloud to myself and it got better each time. Few authors, Joan Didion, Mark Twain, could make the reader feel --I don't know-- beloved(?) You have that skill.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Lisa Southard17 October 2013 at 13:08

    Bombazine is a fine twilled fabric made of silk and wool but also sometimes cotton, and one of those words that makes me smile just because it sounds so nice. The Victorians loved it in black for mourning clothes, so it seems fair to revive the word in happy circumstances. And it is important to me that when I write, though I use the odd unfamiliar word, that there is a sense of inclusiveness, kindliness- even when I write horrible things I strive to be a calm hand to hold throughout. Thank you for your applause, I love it! :-) xx

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