Wishbone Soup Cures Everything

Eyes scrunched like old raisons. Ears water plugged. Feeling discontinued. Crawling through words on metaphoric hands, illustrative knees. Or is it discombobulated, that feeling? Discomforture? Disci- Disco- means a disc, a phonograph, something that can turn around. Crawling in woods, under growth, literal, actual. A circular route. Dog's tail is like a map, a propeller. Round and round and round. Notably round. Rain on the quarry pool, the flat mirror, broken. Around a tree a vine has crept and died; rotted, snapped; the thought comes: what clings will not survive. When the rain stops, the water will still; flat; reflect. Discipline with its connotations of restriction: it is how the word is viewed. It is not the crepuscular vine. Open water reflects it better.

Whatever reason the alarm clock gives to wake me up, it's wrong. It's unreasonable. It is told names that suit it but they are mumbly, unintelligibly tired. No offence is given. Warm clothes, fried eggs and coffee: they bring coherence to the murk. The car is clear of ice: that is a better start: the old trick with a bed sheet has unfixed the fastenings of a late night frost. Condensation, that is the worst of it. The heater blares all the way. A car park hard to find in the dark, barely marked, is, ne'ertheless, found. Nothing stirs but us and the sound of crow-birds. Boy yomps on: bemissioned (like bewitched only self inflicted.) I see his snow trousers catch first light before he blends to furze and granite. I will have a shot more of coffee before treading after, bitter hot and heavenly. It is warm to walk, and undisciplined; all those paths that run off, fall in streams, squash under grey stone bolus; littered by bone and dung; that no sooner snu

How dull the houses were before: with no baubles, no twinkling shapes, no metallic fuzz. Simple reflective reminders: gaudy fun: it all stands brave in the subzero dark. Last year, we say: the wire frame reindeer on the porch roof by the school, how the wind laid it on its back, blinking lights, every night slumped this way or that. Drunk! This year the porch sports multi-coloured lines, a mock-ice terraced palace. Between the gilt and flash of civilized spots, trees throw down leaves. Underneath is such character, dancing naked at the roadside! The car rattles down tunneled ribs, a bony esophagus of branches.

Pale thing whirls: car slows on the night-shade tarmac. What, Fox? What are you doing? The usual fox has a slink to it, crafty, self-contained, avoidant of traffic. This one tacks the road, visually entertaining, like watching an unnecessarily angry person shout and fumble-drop things in a supermarket or other inappropriately public place, until one considers the root of the behaviour: what pain, what despair, to sanction this? One turns an eye inward, then. Compassion for the tragicomic: imagined as a silvery noise, a coin dropping into an empty dish. Headlamps bounce light off untidy fur. No evidence of injury. So, what? Whatever has ruined Fox's day, or minute, or life, it skitters down a hill, muttering, leaves us to baffle.

Love is a light that draws the face As a leaf is drawn: simple, profound Nourished from weather and dirt Something in sight every day, comforting And sometimes the sun angles: or a lamp… From the table where I sit, tapping keys Glance up to sculptural shadows of the avocado leaves A green leather sofa holds a dog and her dreams And a man who is watching the television: all of us Under the cheap kindly brightness of an electric bulb  

This year's festive contribution stems from reading about the Mongolian Winter Solstice: deeply spiritual, community orientated and amply catered.  Ice In The Evergreen Leaves have dropped from the birch trees. Silver bark shines against bare dark earth for a while; then the black streaks are stark against a backdrop of snow. We are no strangers to cold here. This is autumn snow. Our winter starts at the solstice point, spans nine lengths of nine days, drops into chill; like a body without a heartbeat, Grandmother says. 'Maybe this year the earth will stay dead.' She says this every year. I think she believes it. I love the ice on the evergreens, where the sun touches, that's my glimmer of hope. 'Fetching the water for Grandmother, Monkh?' 'Yes, Vachir. Is winter close? It feels close.' Vachir laughs. 'How thick was the ice?' I hold out a finger, horizontal, to show him. He nods. '

They are that small: who can remember? It's not been so long but still we puzzle it. He has a frown. It is troublesome to be born, he says, with this frown and his closed eyes and his scrunched posture. Oh, we say: Baby Boy it will be lovely, you'll see, later, when your eyes can sort shape from colour. Ask your cousin, she has been here for years: two, nearly two and a half. She puts a hand on your hair, it's soft as her own rabbit. You hold her finger- he's got hands , she tells us: her eyes open up wide, all mystery and appreciation. Little Grandson had said all along: when the baby comes, my brother . He is at school when we visit, forging ahead, reconnaissance stuff. Of nature tables and Lego, of numbers, letters, hierarchy, protocol, dinosaurs and biscuits, he has knowledge to impart: gravitas with giggles: such a wry smile he has: those boys, we will be saying: oh, those boys! Every day, every minute: babies are born: ergo: every day, every minute