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Holiday Pieces





Of beach and field and chips and ice cream, of campfire stories with smoke and marshmallows, of flickery lights and buttered vegetables, of a whale skull and wide skies and unexpected swimming, one holiday is assembled.

Never dressed in day clothes much before midday.

Breakfast served in waves of impulse; eggs and toasts, and bits of fruit peel piling on a picnic table.
Dogs underfoot, wanting to help with anything we might drop.

Children cook at the mud kitchen, making delicious cups of mud, but sometimes they are not children, they are snow leopards and puppies, or ponies, or cows called Betsy.
Grandad gets tethered to a tree; again.

Wet clothes lump on warm stones; dry ones rescued from a tide stranded rock.
Laughing: we spend some time on that.

At night we follow the lines of flames, up, up; all of us struck, over and over, with every sliver, every glint, that there are the stars of our origin. What else could we need?














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