I take my seat
settle
real ripples on the pond, from under the surface
whinge of saw
a landscape of gently nudging from both sides
earth and being

High birds fly randomly, black
against clouds and blue
one has caught the wave
glissades higher, wings motionless
a dash against the cirrus
lost
space opens

can bone grow into stone
aching muscle into creaking branch
rumbling stomach into rippling pond

eyes grow wider
lazy around the edges
to catch the flickerings

an eye that listens gently

treasures of the damp, ungainly field
are like cold coins
lain on a warm cheek

Fingers cold and bumbling from rain and cold, its surprising how one can write from an action in the wrist and not fingers, might even call this embodied cold!
Any exposed place - hillock, crevace, ridge, drop, is overtoppling  with water
the earth can't imbibe more so it gathers swelling on the surface, each step swallowed as one goes, everything blurs its shape with overabundance
today the silver birches have turned a dingy vermilion mottled with brown, the hazy pink nimbus rained away

The barn doors swing like giant eyelids,
opening and closing the view.
Here, look at this, shelter from that
A loud bang as one slaps the outside wall, light in, pond reflecting
The other wavers to a close
and swiftly, silently back again
The wind reveals what it wants me to see
Both wide for a moment, as if gone, then shuffling in gently twinning.
The choreography of wind and doors,
Slow Stravinsky rhythms, insistent yet unbalanced
intricate and subtle
Wind has never been more visual

stumbling up from the charcoal tree
I see the first snowdrops
I have a long way to go in observing if a crowd of snowdrops appears unoticed
their likely fates to be drowned or frozen
without a touch of light , they look grey

the looking needs to start again
the looking is always new
the looking is always ahead of you
the looking has only just begun

Just wanted to sit for a while, watch the clouds

the door cuddling up to me in the wind, touching and support my left arm
slice of light marshmallowed by clouds
the dot to dots of a shallow of birds, starlings, sparrows, too far away to see

too cold to leave the body
toes warm in socks, backs of thighs catching the wind, and the round of my shoulderblade has cold holding it, drawing my mind to my body makes it present,
the lingering tension in the stomach,
the held point at the tip of the breastbone
skin of hands and head in the air

the spongy pinkness rises from the winter birches, the colour gloams and holds
the creak of  wing and branch
the crucial outline of my body dissolves, easy to leave

 glance of hair across my forehead  -
I look at the mud at the bottom of my trousers
cartography of moving through mud
might go un noticed if I just flung them in the washing machine
a map's a map, a way in, a way to follow
Forsenic policemen could trace my every move with the earth on the bottom of my boots
a walk traced over and over
Does it go into the bones, the memory, the body, the land

the sky suddenly seems huge

the birch pink deepens and I shiver

Looking at the outline of the oak against the heavy white sky
a repetitive, breathing,swish, unnerved me
swish, had me look up, swish,
I was sitting in the centre of a V ( the other way up) of Canada Geese
white and grey against the white
symmetry of wing and pattern
an uplift of magic
on this seeping, dull, lightless day

It is bright sun

ice crystallizing the bricks

breath of steam, the only moving cloud

The birds are back.
At least six kinds
The birds are back.
Stacking their claim to holding onto sound

I listen like a dull grey seed hugging my winter self.

A shard of shadow pierced with light reaches under the barn door.

 Must walk home.
Holding tense against the ice
gentle          cautious             careful

Hold it tight.

strong sun and shadows
snow is actually ice crystals like rock salt enlarged
clinging together to reflect enough light to be white
and give the appearance of snow

there are no birds
just the wind
no rustles no squeaks - just air
almost bleak
are they all in hiding?


off towards christmas

Looking at tracks trying to work out which tracks belong to what sort of car

Enough light in the sky to give things a colour, more pronounced and variable today

deep dulled magenta of faraway birches
black shadows in soggy brown pines
bright orchre of oak
old fashioned dark green velvet of yew
turning tan of last lying leaves cradled in icicle snow