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: time
Ghost, circa 1882.
Where to, miss?
the air whispered
the horses’ bells peeled by the winds
jingling, the horses ready to leave
I turned my neck a little
to see if they were there—
was I ready for a ride?
—but the driver had already turned away
leaving kicked-up dust
of moon-smoke in his wake.
Filling Time.
Moments musical
moments magical
moments of lost joy
moments of lost time
moments found
and moments lost again
moments of transcendence
moments without trace
elevated moments
buoyed
momentarily free, and floating
moments dropped
moments left behind
in pockets
dipped-in, and found again
moments drifting, elongating
moments dragging, under-taking
moments tinkling and a-glow
moments of darkness
moments drowned
moments harsh, that cut
moments soft, that lull
louder moments, fraught and frantic
moments calling
and the ones that pull away
moments growing in the deep
moments ending
moments rounded-out, replete.
Go.
I told you
time is what it needed
why’d you give it space as well?
The Tree That Felt Disquiet.
So the magpie swept up to his high branch, wings buffeted by the warm summer gusts. His tree grew old and tall at the top of the cutting, at its very edge, where the little cliff of scraggly bushes dropped suddenly down to the four sets of tracks and the log yard. It was a pale, silvery gum, straight-trunked with few branches, each one sturdy and clustered with large, long, thin leaves that shifted in colour from apple green in youth to faded bottle in middle-age and to a palette of spotted purples and greys as they grew ready to fall. Along with its dry leaves, it dropped unusually large gumnuts that, falling from a great height, cracked and spilled seeds that went scuttling over the pavement. The magpie had seen many trains pass on the tracks below him, but the gumtree in its long lifetime had seen many more. The tree had heard many voices, and wondered many things. Chief among its thoughts at that moment was an attempt to comfortably explain the growing nagging sensation it felt of some mounting, rumbling energy in the air. Had the world become faster, these trains more frequent, or was it the tree that had slowed?
Times Between.
in the long silences
—the spaces—
traced in silver trails traversed
those moments
of long looking
in silence
and with thought dispersed
these spaces
of sensation
colliding with a world inverse
the moments
worn as fragments
fracture
and in time reverse
Magical: Day One 