Skip to main content

Lurch


Fleet of foot, the fox slips over the brow of the hill road; body dark, eyes lit: a photographic negative. Boy misses it but we are in good time for his early bus.
He heads for London with a coach of arty students, two cheese sandwiches and a camera. (Return time: roughly midnight.)
The house is quiet, bar the thump of Dog's tail. Sleep is not calling. There is leftover coffee in a silver flask.
From the porch steps I see the sky lighten, the early cloud drift, the tree silhouettes still leafed, like dark lace; the oak reminds me of a Spanish shawl, a widow's dress.
-Imagine a widow in this breaking dawn light: the sun rising on such a different life.
Birds are piping shrill; traffic on the A30 flows, a constant churn.
The steps are cold: I have on a woollen coat, and flip-flops.
-All over the world, such changes are happening: seasons and circumstances. History seems a clumsy lurch: if we get to hold hands awhile, that is grace in a clumsy world. Good to be stoic but one must leave gaps: it's where hope can get in. All good armour needs a chink, if one is to be human, part of this perception curve.
Out of night, a landscape appears.


Comments

Heather Robinson said…
Lisa, this is a perfect example of why you are one of my favorite writers anywhere. Merci.
21 September 2013 at 11:24
Suze said…
'Good to be stoic but one must leave gaps: it's where hope can get in.'

My eyes are watering. I just read this to my sister and husband and the three of us felt the appropriate quiet joy.
21 September 2013 at 16:55
Lisa Southard said…
To be read with such appreciation is joyful and humbling. Reciprocity rocks, ladies, thank you xxx
21 September 2013 at 17:09
Post a Comment

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...
2 comments
Read more

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 ...
26 comments
Read more

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...
Post a Comment
Read more