Bleak




Mournful wind song shudders the old aerials. 
Solid thud of shotgun sounds from the banks of the swollen river, under a plain sky coloured like thick ice. 
Any leaf that has not fallen shivers in the moan of the wind. 
Birds' song carries a restless note. 
Beauty strikes starkly. 
Beyond the river, a faint view of moorlands, where any creature can live and die and never be known. 
Bones are weathered, lay stoic in clumps of enduring grass.



Comments

klahanie said…
And with this posting, I can see a reflection of those who have lived and died, never really being known.

Thank you, Lily.
18 January 2013 at 00:59
Suze said…
I'd like to think it is someone's job to note the living and passing of every creature.
18 January 2013 at 01:37
Geo. said…
I love how you make the cold and dormant details of winter riparian into a living organism, huge and whole. My compliments.
18 January 2013 at 02:20
Optimistic Existentialist said…
I love this...you gave life to this unknown being...beautiful.
18 January 2013 at 13:08
Lisa Southard said…
Much response to the creatures who live without note: hence the following post! (That + snow)
Thank you all for your thoughtful provocations :-)
18 January 2013 at 23:36
Buttons Thoughts said…
Oh I am loving your words :). B
19 January 2013 at 16:50
Lisa Southard said…
Thank you Buttons- your descriptions of farm life are rather life affirming :-)
19 January 2013 at 20:28
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Buds

Image
Dear Readers, Here we are! Not lost, just busy, just tired, just taking a moment to sit with our shared flask of ginger tea, wiping our snotty noses, watching winter and spring swing around in their season-switching dance. Hard frost crackles, soft petals bloom. We had been busy with the old art of hedge laying, busy sorting and tidying the felled trunks, branches, and twigs. There are heaps and stacks and bundles - these boundaries have been untouched for decades - but birds are beginning to gather materials for nests, heralding the end of our hedgework for a while. Our thoughts have turned to The Planting Plan, so we pace around measuring canopy distances before going home to pour over the map, again, again.   Two plum trees wait in pots, they have their spots marked. Everything else is a maybe. Down along the iron fence are lines and lines of daffodils, all in bud. Only one has opened, a miniature narcissus staring bravely up at the big world. We are inspired of course, thoug
Read more

Eulogy For Dog

Image
We had wanted a puppy and while at 10 months old she was not quite that, we saw her in the rescue home and we knew she was right for us. She was a liver and white Springer Spaniel, real name Midi (not too big, not too small) with a slender, tentative form. I respected her privacy so online she was known as Dog- many of you, Dear Readers, have watched her grow up with us, and will be sorry to learn that her adventures have ended now: please read on, come with us, it will be okay. The hesitancy young Midi Spaniel held towards her new home was reserved for indoors. Outdoors she was absurdly reckless, usually clumsy. She pelted over barbed wire, through thorns, jumped five bar gates; she threw herself into the sea, the river, the lake, the muddy puddles, rolled merrily in dung- she hated the bath. She did not much care for the company of other dogs, though with persistence she learned tolerance, and once fell in reciprocal love. She adored children. Children could be trained to play fetch
Read more

Ghost Dog And The Wobbles Of Progress

Image
‘1/1/22 Saturday Last night just before midnight, we strolled down the dark lane, wine glasses in hand; spotted constellations, watched distant fireworks. This morning Dog had done several splats of foulness on the living room carpet. HNY! Also this morning: In bed, chinking coffee cups, we say- what will this year bring? We hope it’s a track and a toilet shed.’ Well, we have a track on our land, all the way from top to bottom gate. It’s not as finely finished as we’d hoped, but it is here. We have a toilet shed, and it’s not the quality lumber we had hoped for, but it is built, and it will suffice. Everything is layering up, however slow or wonky: up! There were, too, events that we did not foresee or hope for. The van engine blew up. We can’t fix it. No one wishes to buy it, at least not yet. It will be utilised as a winter shelter on our land until a better idea/miracle arrives. A painful chunk of land fund went to buy a replacement vehicle, which is much cheaper to run so there is
Read more