Earthed




Hedgetrees exude an energy of moving, even frozen in their dance: it goads a passerby to wander further.
I've come this far, I could take a stroll in the woods.
The top path is shining, licked by rain. All the fallen leaves make soft compost. Trees grip the abrupt edges with roots like dinosaur toes. Where the path is smothered by fallen timbers, there is a new path being worn beneath. Above is rotted limbs and some low badger tracks.
I've never trod there, and it's so close. I've come this far.
The bracken is black, frost smitten; the prone wood-flesh uncomfortably soft. Only the brambles are green and fresh and drag blood from unwary skin. Where the track runs out is too steep for standing, descent happens as a seated slide.
Sometimes the moss here grows bigger than the trees.
Three hours pass. Dog and I, mud flecked, drowsy, find the house again.
We both seem surprised, to unearth this life outside the woods.





Comments

  1. Suze3 February 2013 at 21:33

    When I read about these treks of yours, I feel gnarled. At 'the end,' I become self-conscious and 'see' that my face is contorted in virtuviscerality.

    You force something out of your readers, Lily. Not that you're trying. It just happens that way. Take for example,

    'the prone wood-flesh uncomfortably soft.'

    I have never stepped there, and yet now, in a very real way, I have and I can never go back.

    Does that make sense?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Lisa Southard3 February 2013 at 21:54

    It does make sense Suze, and it makes me do a hedgetree dance :-) xx
    -Virtuviscerality!! Superb!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Geo.4 February 2013 at 07:18

    Again, magical. It all seems to be reaching into the future, trees that have jumped their roots, hedge that has laid itself, toward something. Time is recalibrated --added, not deducted.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Lisa Southard6 February 2013 at 00:20

    Thank you Geo- this is a good summation- recalibrated time :-)

    ReplyDelete

Post a comment

Thank you for reading my words- my chance to read yours here:

Popular posts from this blog

Three Letters To Grace

Image
Words On Love, Loss, And Grieving



21/5/2020 Dear Grace,
I have said how your legacy is the small kind things; I have been noticing them more and more. It’s almost ridiculous, in a wonderful way, to be so taken by the pattern on a plate or how clever elastic is. I can’t stop making beautiful meals. Yesterday I woke up with the bravado to debone a turkey leg. It took awhile; regret was made fleeting by success. I feel like you know. That your light and care are here in everything and that’s why I am continually tuning in. The energy to transform everything is part of this, to celebrate our ordinary splendour. This has manifested into some minor furniture renovations and uncovered a leaking pipe under the bath. (I think we can fix it, I’ve put a cloth down for now to soak it up, left it open to dry out the floor and the rotted skirting board. The bath panel is outside meanwhile… should I paint it? Probably not…)
This is the best of grief; the deep and peaceful loss, the fine example, your …
Read more

Corona Creep Up

Image
Words From The Start Of Lockdown Life


Saturday March 14th 2020
On the drive to work I got bored of changing the windscreen wiper settings, then a little off-white spider raced around on the steering wheel. I blew it onto the dashboard but it jumped back. Cheeky spider. At work we are bored of coronavirus restrictions and bored at the prospect of it continuing. We don’t know anyone who has it. Supermarket shelves are missing toilet roll, dried pasta, as previously, now also tins of beans and tomatoes. There are travel bans and cancelled events. Last night I had to teach a non contact TKD session - no pads, no sparring, no hand shaking. I began my class with ‘first of all, please don’t breathe because that’s dangerous now.’ All of us are ‘meh’ about these restrictions. We understand that infection control is serious for the immune-compromised, we adhere to protocol for that reason. But the paranoia and boredom: meh. Monday March 16 2020 Yesterday Mr and I did some babysitting for Grandch…
Read more

A Rainbow Strikes

Image
June is rolling by, awash, so everyone has forgotten that it's summer now.  This morning I peered into the vegetable plots, into the swaying minarets of onion buds, the splay of cabbage seed pods, not sure if the raspberries were the summer or the autumn kind.  Lovage flowers, tiny spray on tall stems; lavender in bud: summer. Wild strawberries and rose petals in the dehydrator and the windows open to better hear the thunder: summer. After an evening swim one must wrap up: always. 
I am busy writing a story that seems to be running in rings about me, I am busy wild swimming to clear my head; working to pay the bills, reading up on rural planning law to wrestle reality from a dream. Picking the roses, the strawberries, the onion flowers. Tending the cabbage bed.  Standing still when I remember: see the swallows swoop by. Or floating, bobbing up toes, while each rain drop ripples out. Or that stop on the beach, while I am looking ridiculous with a towel on my head; two lumpy layered jumpers…
Read more