Leaf-motif


Aurum drifts from an avenue of beech: we scuff up fibrous coinage, walking the riverbank path.
Two hounds bound into the clear brook and out, sniff stumped trees, scrabble claws on flood-smoothed granite.
It's good magic at Golitha Falls. We breathe it: the scent of clear river, green fern, tree bark, wet rock, fresh leaf fall.
Otters live here: we will not see them, we know, we must imagine it: Dog and Fat Beagle make too much splash. We love the road signs seen on approach:
Caution
Otters crossing.
Tree roots bump the path, mossed green: can be mistaken with delighting ease; serpents; dragon tails; giants' fingers: emerging like stories, irrepressible, earth-nourished.
I think of Midas: how wrong he was, turning everything to gold with indiscriminate touch. Autumn is the wiser alchemist, truly rich.
Two hounds bound: scatter fulvous treasures.
Before home, coffee appears in a shining flask cap.



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