Flying down river to the sea with Topsham on its left and Powderham on its right.
I’d really like to try his view of the Exe. Just once.
Category: A River of Stones
January Small Stones # 13
White frost has returned
sniffing through the rhinopath
red labyrinth chilled
January Small Stones # 12
A twenty foot section of hedge was lost today. Devon hedge, mainly elm but with hawthorn, blackthorn, red Campion, herb Robert, ivy and nettle. At its base there is stone and it must be very old. A hundred years ago it surrounded a field used for cricket, that wouldn’t have stopped the butterflies and bugs from living happily. It’s not the first section to be taken and I wonder when will it stop?
January Small Stones # 11
January Small Stones # 10
It arrived on Christmas Eve and the aroma has become more pungent each day. A small round Camembert that lurked for a while with Stilton, Brie, Cheddar and Double Gloucester. For the last week the smell has had to be contained in a sealed box but even so it has escaped to pounce on fridge openers bombarding nasal passages. It was so strong that plans had to be made to ensure that the fridge door was open as briefly as possible. Today it had to be tackled.
I removed the outer wrapper, squidging to check it was ripe. Perfect. Re-wrapping it, I covered it with foil and popped it into a hot oven for twenty minutes.
The most divine lazy girls Tuesday tea and I notice that the smell seems to have faded as the flavour has developed!
January Small Stones # 9
Palest baby blue crumples
are starched flat to bleached grey
unravelled to a screen print
of scorched gold and flame red
then tie dyed to intense indigo
and deepest velvet purple.
January Small Stones # 8
Observing a neighbour sweeping leaves.
A powerful symbol the broom
swept away bad people from Tiv
from a fragile landscape
the dead leaves of society
and in Yorubaland the corrupt.
January Small Stones # 7
When did people start to leave cuddly toys on the graves of lost children? I’ve always found it sad to see them, fresh and new at first and then over months and years, seeing how they become weather beaten and faded. What I saw today was one of the bleakest things I have ever seen, a Christmas gift for a daughter who has passed. It was still in its box and with dew on the inside. I almost dread to see it deteriorate and wonder about the pain of the parent who left it. I hope it helps with their grief.
January Small Stones # 6
I sit across from her hands for the first time. From the orange stain between the two top joints of her middle finger, of course there would be. From the nearly okay nails. Not the expected short neat clip, but some long, interspersed with others, angle-broken with two weeks’ worth of un-straightened growth. From the wrist, with an unevenly shaped centimetre of darkness, erupting on the crumpled paper thin skin.
January Small Stones # 5
Lady of the wood,
torn and wounded in your youth,
broken hearted, scarred.
Lucid Gypsy 