Choral voices pierced the ceiling of the sky.
Category: Bits and Pieces
One Ghost Crept In.
Silently, he sidled up, to speak to me of his death.
He stepped into my inattention, my rapt, lost, quiet moment, empty of all thought, anchored in this place—he stepped in through an open door.
Silently, I greeted him.
He spoke quietly, but somehow, not in words, and told me—of the cold, and slipping, of the body drawn, and stopping. Told me—of his heart, raced-heartbeat, its reaching, its long-slow,
and stopping.
He told me—why.
As I listened, the weak sunlit sky of day was made all dark. I saw the spotlights’ circles flash and search, their beams made crossed swords clashing. I heard the rain that made the river rise to meet the sky, made water of the air, and suffocated the swimmer’s breath. I too was drawn, lost in liminal spaces, not in time, but drawn, and drowning. Before us ran the river; beneath our feet and at our backs grey stone drew closer, tighter, rain-wet and black, spotlight-flashed.
Silently, I listened.
He told me—of setting Westward stroke, night fallen, of swimming through the dark. I heard the siren stir; the blood in me was pulsed. He told me—or was it that I heard them?—of bullets cutting course through water. Told me—
this is where I died.
From the door, left ajar, cold breeze whispered, made ice of bones, deep-seeping under skin.
And silently,
still, the river ran.
Words.
What matters is not their matter, but that they matter still.
Ghosts of My Berlin.
One ghost crept in, bedraggled, dripping drops of water, cold, and dispersing flakes of ice.
It’s the Sound and the Silence.
It’s the sound—the sound of the crows, of the seabirds, and the horns and the motors. I love the sound of India. I love the feel of it—its warmth in winter (though I have not known its rains). Here, there is too much silence—far, far too much silence for comfort. It is not the blanketing, calming silence of the countryside. It the is the broken silence of the suburbs, halting and haunted by a presence unseen.
And —
And beds blanketed with an eiderdown of tulips turned tipsy to the sun.
After Midnight on a Wednesday.
Next door, the whine of dial-up internet
I wonder why
are they spies?
A Place You Can Slip Into.
Each place we connect with teaches us something — leaves something embedded within us. Some layer of the city’s smudge, some scent of countryside that clings, some pulse that enters the heart and lingers.
Then there always is its pace somewhere inside you — the pace of the place — its rhythms, its moods — a place you can slip into.
The North Star.
How I felt upon seeing that bright spot in the sky.
A single, bright star.
So long had I been gazing upon a different sky that I was quite shocked to see it. A single, bright, close star.
My eyes glued to the star as the taxi streaked quietly on into the gloaming, and the star through the window grew only brighter.
And again, she thought that she might cry.
To England, where my heart lies.
Sweet hymnal music and the chirp of springtime’s birds.
Brickwork, colours so varied and subtle, aged. Repainted, refreshed, changed, restored.
Pink Mayfair! Oh, glory!
Just to walk there — here, there, and everywhere — just to walk there is to live. Not for so long — so long — have I felt so alive.
Found in a Notebook, titled ‘Au Printemps. St Kilda Botanical Gardens. A sunny Tuesday.’
Para-gliders — five of them — loop across the bright, warm blue sky. The day is cloudless, stirred by a slight, light breeze. How far can they see, from up there? A vast stretch of billowing, bloated mass of inhabited land. The ocean; the ships beyond the horizon. What do they see of me? A small, black splodge; an ant on grass, as insignificant as the winged ant that just now alights upon my scribbling page.
On the subject of insects — there are bees about, hovering peacefully above the clusters of yellow daisy-like blooms that sprout from the grass in ragged patches wilted by the sun. The occasional fly goes by my ear.
Another sky-watcher makes his way across the blue; a light plane, mumbling and growling back and forth, the light shining silver on the white body of the plane.
Sunbathing season has begun. The lawns are littered with girls baring themselves to the warm spring sun, so I am not out of company with my cotton bath-sheet to spread upon the grass. Contented-looking babies are wheeled about the gardens by their mothers.
Distant, high-pitched screams come from above, as another para-glider’s chute opens with a strange crackling roar.
The breeze feels layered; it buffets across my skin in alternating, mingling streams of cool, dry, quick air, and pockets of languorous, humid warmth.
Magical: Day One 