Wishbone Soup Cures Everything

The wind is lively in the trees, it gives them a voice. They gesticulate, discussing the idea of a storm. A storm would take out the deadwood before branches get heavy with leaf. The hollowed oak doesn’t say much, though the wind channels up through the open centre of it. A layer of rainless cloud sits in still air, the wind does not reach beyond the tree-tops. The storm is only an idea. With my coat zipped up it is too warm. With my coat undone I aware of a lingering chill. Celandine leaves are populating the grass, the daffodil buds are fat and yellow in the sparse hedge. The sense of seasons turning is the sense of life progressing. 

The fourteenth day of this month arrives in a tepid mist. Again the weather is unsure, vacillating between chill and light warmth, as spring unsettles winter. We take a measured stroll around the field perimeters, which are marked in numerous ways. There are fences of squared wire, straggling lines of barbed wire, hedges in various states of repair, broad boundaries of blackberry thickets, impassable knots of willow, a clot of laurel, a clogged stream, sheets of corrugated tin, coppiced hazel and many types of over grown tree. Where Mr has chopped down the sycamore, thick sap drips and orange splatters appear, like the stumps have vomited carrot soup in protest. We marvel at the attribute, although it is not pleasant, it is interesting behaviour. From the top path, we look out across the valley and onto the moors. The perimeters of the horizon are hazed, as winter blurs into spring. 

I'm not sure this picture does justice to the flaming colour hidden inside damson wood. We pick a lot of damsons and make many pots of jam and chutney. It's a beautiful colour, as most fruits are, and it never occurred to me that damson logs would be every bit as bright, in an oppositional colour. 451 All day the aeroplanes Will pass overhead, regular Cloud stripes tracing lines of Escapes and returns 452 There are holidays, business trips Emigrations, travels of many applications My best reason for travel is that you often see What you have best from a distance 453 Some people walk the earth To find nothing, some people Take one step to find everything Even if it isn’t perfect 454 The branches are assessed, they are Re-angled for dividing down into log sizes The first two cuts make a platform, two Wood lengths, to rest the branch across 455 The chainsaw zips through Each suspended branch The air sm

Neither the sun nor the clouds will fully commit, leaving the day overcast. These are the dull conditions in which boredom can spread. Outside, the nuances of cloud and filtering sunrays can be observed. They require an effort to appreciate, an acquired taste of weather, unlike the instant deliciousness of blue sky or the immediate bitter-sour jolt of lightening. Outside the air carries a smell of spring that I am unable to describe, maybe it’s just the rise in air temperature over the cold of the ground. The wind has chill but not ice, the ground is wintry damp but not frozen. When winter is approaching, filtering in through autumn, one thinks of thick knits and the possibility of wearing a bobble-topped hat, but now, spring must be sifting into the air, for I am thinking of pretty florals and short sleeves, like some ancient instinct is telling me to shed my winter coat. My Wellington boots have a floral print, so I’m prepared. 

Usually the night is full of sleep but last night was different, containing about 5% sleep by volume: discontinuous sleep, the least useful kind. Without sleep, tolerance suffers. Concentration wanders off. I can’t find mine and the effort of search is frowning my head. My teeth get unnecessarily sharp and unyielding claws spring from tapping fingertips. Hot water drops from the tap, is imprecisely mixed with scented foam. In the steam, floating limbs and mind click back together like a mended toy. Sharpness relocates. Some preciseness of thought makes a list of what will happen next. Get out of bath. Wrap inside the towelling robe and look out at the infinite sky. The oblique orange moon stares back, like the iris of a dragon.

We are in the car, driving; the landscape, the daylight, the season, everything is in flow. The mysteriously attentive corner of my eye catches a shimmy of tree, like they are dancing when they think I cannot see; the fat evergreens and the austere deciduous celebrating the spring tide, while daylight is turning down on a dimmer switch, is dissipating into the edgeless suffusion of sky, and the stars come on automatically in blinks. I have bought a new wash bag today, thinking through spring, all the way to summer. I am thinking of watching the night gather outside my tent, while I sit with a brandy and sun blushed skin, breathing in the fresh dark air. My new wash bag hangs from a tent pole.  

I read out the date; Ten Two Twelve, it sounds like a time check, nearly noon, or nearly midnight. It is midmorning. The sky is a blur of wet grey. There’s no amazement from anyone that cloud covers the whole of the visible earth, it’s merely a bland layer. People are mentioning that the weather has warmed, to balance rain disappointment. I wonder if our reluctant daffodils will open some buds. I can see wet naked hazel branches from the window, sat with my notebook while Baby sleeps. A rose in a single stem vase has not run out of water but the heated indoor air has dried the flower petals. The clock here does not tick, it makes a subdued rhythmic rattle, like a heart monitor picking up an unborn beat. I am doing that dangerous thing, picking up my pen and deliberately thinking of what to write, when I write the date and read it out loud.