Skip to main content

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.
Suze said…
I'd like to think it is someone's job to note the living and passing of every creature.
Geo. said…
I love how you make the cold and dormant details of winter riparian into a living organism, huge and whole. My compliments.
I love this...you gave life to this unknown being...beautiful.
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 :-)
Oh I am loving your words :). B
Lisa Southard said…
Thank you Buttons- your descriptions of farm life are rather life affirming :-)

Popular posts from this blog

Contact Pants Conundrum

There is weather today, I do note it: take a few moments to reckon the size of a cloud (big) and the frequency of rain (sporadic.) Centre of my interest though is a stack of magazines. Not the fashion kind. This is martial arts research. I'm not even sure what it is I'm looking for, but intuition calls loud. A range of old adverts skew some amusement. Contact pants, for example. Pants are not trousers where I come from. They are underwear. Professional contact pants: improved smirk value. But why would a person be likely to purchase a grappling hook and a lock pick set? For specialists and hobbyists only, the blurb assures. Guidance on the pheromone spray that attracts women against their better judgement? I doubt it works any more proficiently than the mysterious potion that defines your muscles while you sleep. But, then: I wonder is some sprayed on this paper? What was my intuition thinking, making this ghastly shout… Tea break time. There's a lot of words...

Back From The Future Blog Party

Another joint blog adventure- if you want to see who else said what the list of participants is here . The premise is this: 'You're up before dawn on a Saturday when the doorbell rings. You haven't brewed your coffee so you wonder if you imagined the sound. Plonking the half-filled carafe in the sink, you go to the front door and cautiously swing it open. No one there. As you cast your eyes to the ground, you see a parcel addressed to you ... from you. You scoop it up and haul it inside, sensing something legitimate despite the extreme oddness of the situation. Carefully, you pry it open. Inside is a shoebox -- sent from ten years in the future -- and it's filled with items you have sent yourself. What's in it?' Here's how I imagined it: Before dawn? Shadows outside, first forming. Sleep has gone, I don't know where. Coffee I can find. All the way from Machu Pichu, this fair-traded pack. Scissors are in the drawer, which ...

Hometime Foam Time

It was hot outside, cold indoors. When we were freed from the hall I opened my car thinking oven gloves might be required for driving. I was weary. I was lined up for a row of shifts- but the evenings are lighter now, and the beach was calling. I drove a wiggly route to Veryan (the road I chose was closed) and down to Carne Beach. Since I had checked the weather the wind had turned easterly, and the tide was in. There were waves smacking over a disappearing line of fine sand. Undeterred I wriggled my swimsuit on and went to play in the foam.  Neither air nor sea was particularly cold. Blue and cloud patterned sky, blue and turquoise patterned sea, flowers blooming and swooshed by the wind, and the warm brown crags of rock: to be here was to be directly connected to the source of all existence.  Home time was foam time, and vice versa. Afterwards I sat in my car, door open, eating a square of dark chocolate, watching the white flecks and trying to work out if the dark dot was a...