Up above, from tall, invisible trees, two birds call-and-answered in delicate, dawn-like song. There was a crisp freshness to the air that like the birds spoke of morning. The sky was the shade of holiday-beginnings — of taxis caught under early-morning skies. On this topsy-turvy day, tilting at the turn of the seasons, I could almost smell the blossom promised by the bare, sticky branches of the neat street-trees. Their austere nude winter limbs were soon to be transformed into fleeting beauties, dressed in sweet pink tulle, white lace, and glinting emerald buds. In the garden, winter-blooming bulbs perfumed the air, sweet and cloying. They’d pushed themselves inevitably onwards, upwards, through the soil and the old weathered wood-chips and the nights’ frosts. I’d watched them growing, determined and mysterious, and wondered who had planted them and how long ago. Once close enough to the sun they sprung into tight white clusters of pretty, simple flowers and bravely sang of spring while the winter raindrops clung coldly to the air.
Tag: garden
Weather Turning.
The wisteria had completely died away for the winter and was now just a mess of bare, stick-like tendrils grasping to the house. But other flowers had been more stubborn – the roses were still bravely opening new flirtatious buds into the cold and the lavender trees, neat and thick, stood staunchly. The summer-dried and now rain-soaked leaves smelt like French fields, sun-drenched and stretching out flat beneath a low, blue sky. It seemed some hasty gardener had been through the bushes, for the path was strewn with freshly clipped lavender branches and scattered flower-heads. They and the cut ends of the tree’s branches were leaking fragrance into the air and infusing the raindrops with oil. The rain broke-up the air willy-nilly so that I caught the scent only in quick snatches before it was washed or wind-blown away. As I walked down the path the cat-scratches on the backs of my hands brushed against the bristle-like dead-heads and stung, risen and puffed, in fine slivers of pink through almost translucent skin.
Garden.
We wove some magic here.
Deckled trees with fairy dust—
the figments of our imaginations drew lines
between the sky
between the leaves
between the earth.
A white butterfly
—wandered, onward, captain of our fairy band—
buffeted by the breeze
took flight
and glittered flicking wings
into the sunlight.
He was like our memory
—allied and squandered to the air—
a captain captive to the passing currents
at rest on tides of drifting listlessness
buoyed on waves of sound—loud
reverbed from the earth itself
and beneath the ground dispersed to nothing but vibrations.
Caws of magpie on the branches of trees
beyond the fence-lines
called insistent, echoed
and, in flight, drew ever more away.
We left a fish adrift on the wall
—light-flicker, silver scales in the sun—
to tinker with our senses
breaking beams against one another in refraction
into parts.
We played colour against cousin
and deployed in every gesture of design
a symmetry of power in all things that’s mirrored
in perfection
by the most broken shook-up thoughts of early morning
when night’s break seems to slumber
beyond the restless sleepless soul.
Little carrions of life
—bearing sunshine as they went
light caught white upon their tiny wings—
darted, tumbled, climbed and flew
their circus one of circles through the sky
an endless repetition of their patterns
that went on gently till the nightfall.
We saw every tiny thing alight
—their edges made their edges
and at once made melting edge-to-edge—
their glimmered rims glimpsed through lashes
looked-at sideways
caught in sketches from the doorways
of the moments
only half-here and half-now.
Sky-shimmers, the lineaments
copied in colour to our files and stored in footloose memory
to make the fodder of our dreams
when distorted
cards shuffled
and re-drawn upon the pages of imagination sleeping.
We weave some magic here
sleeping awake
in day-dreaming
in slow reading
of the air.
Devices.
wait
a train passes
quietly whistles
whispers past
wait
in silence latent
another train passes
faster
wait
in mounting silence
with its beauty
latent
silent
gone
wait
in stillness
with its silent beauty potent
fragrant stillness
idly still
wait
and another train passes
and silence once broken
creaks achingly
shrieks
the ugly shriek of morning cockatoos
strewing seeds from the gum-tops
fretfully
shrieking
swooping wide white wings low over streets
with anxious shrieking
and shaking
as another train passes
rumbles
and another train
grumbles
sweeping silver streak
shrieking
creaking on the tracks
rumbles underground
the city groans
achingly
shrieks
the city groans
anxiously
speaks
in silent ugly words
scattered like seed by the morning cockatoos
And —
And beds blanketed with an eiderdown of tulips turned tipsy to the sun.
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 