Skip to main content

Low-Key Festivities



The way the wind blows is roguish today. It ties knots in loose hair, chucks tree debris, tugs at moorings. One pheasant attempting flight is held at a hover till it gives up. Clouds are pushed till they fall into one fuzzed grey spread.

Indoors, a busy oven: the last of the pumpkin seeds roast, a pan of butter boils to ghee. The floors are swept and we are indecisive about the washing.


Drive home from work under a dark sky, not one firework appears.

There are evenings when we have stood, bundled in outdoor padding, sighing at flagrant fires in the sky: tiny against mountainous flames: writing shapes with fizzing white heat: thrilled by the tar barrels: ears crackling with luminous shrieks.

Indoors, behind the Rayburn door, coals and hand-hewn logs form an orange opal underworld. The flames are lazy, magnificent, mauve-tinted.



Comments

Suze said…
What is burning?

(I don't want to be like the pheasant.)
6 November 2013 at 16:56
Lisa Southard said…
Tar in the barrel- dangerous and stunning! Google 'Tar barrels Ottery St Mary' to find out more: we all got a bit singed but no burns!
I don't think we are pheasants. They are clumsy movers, very reactionary :-)
6 November 2013 at 22:03
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

A Glitch Or Two

My Chromebook has been crumbling. It seems a little like dementia, this inability to upgrade its powers of communication, it makes me sad, even for an object. It's one of the reasons my posts here have been put aside, that and generally being tumbled by tiredness. I have saved up money for a replacement, also I have spent that money on trees and shrubs. I have two novels to sort out however, and this will be the reason I save up again. I don't stop writing, even if I don't tell anyone. In the meantime should you need a calm place to go, I have begun a substack account. Please do drop by. If the kettle crumbles we can make tea (or soup) on the firepit. Me on substack:  Lisa Southard
Post a Comment
Read more