{Words came easier the second time I wrote, it was gentler, I had come back from a morning run and my thoughts were already writing themselves}

Water Meadow (for A)

We rise, the magpie and I, in a swirl of damp feathers. Look no further than the river edge, oozed mud between our toes. The tenderness of the tide taking everything under.

Nothing is left to chance, nothing is ever still. The briars and berries and dew new grass and dank salt-slow smell of the boat’s demise and the jacks on the cliffs and the rise and fall of breath on the water meadows.

The rough chaff of the strimmed path, itchy bashed weed seed heads smashed open amongst the washed-out crisp packets and the wind. Charming. Charms of goldfinches, Christ birds grace the skies without realising it.

The depth of morning shadow, the ancient murmur of trees growing, compassionate, rotting, compassionate, unknowing, compassionate.

All the while a blackbird and a mower sing rusty high-low duets.

The morning growing outward. The gulls chase the shadows and shadow birds and bones of the Downs and down. Down. Soft fleece of the rosebay flight.

Your hand that fits mine leaves a memory mark when I run this land. Briars, brambles, the dark stain of stolen fruit, a smile, evening sun on the slow, slow eloquent river. A gentle stare from a dusty beast, no one is fenced in, robin song from the river edge. The gentle fall of leaves, scales, scars.

Pennies dropping to the murky depths, bubbles rising, singing, sighing.

Drop. Stone. Story. Walls crumbling in the rain, rebuilt from the chalk. A thousand years of stories, faces in the wind. Blown away. Away, loping into the distance.

Thought given flight. Can’t fight it anymore. Heaven knows (really knows). Only stories. Running words, swallowing stones, writing, swallowing sobs, writing, the last swallow. Writing. Only words.

Home, breathless. Beginning. Again.