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Thursday 19 November 2009

the wind and its wiles

A knife, a tomato, scissors, Rizla, a red pepper, two novels, one notebook, one address book, a letter, a sprig of broccoli, a pen, a handkerchief, a mobile phone.

And me. I'm lying diagonally across this expanse of bed, my feet nestled comfortably in a thick wedge of feather duvet. The woodburner in the corner is roaring out heat, the delicately scrolled legs a benign camouflage for its angry interior.

I am in lovely home comfort, quiet radio keeping me company in this green caravan. Outside the wind is wild, it presses against the walls of my wood lined retreat and I can feel the structure shifting and bending in the face of these solid fists of air.

The wind turbine emits great swoops of sound, the frantic mechanic whines of a machine approaching maximum exertion. How long until it abandons this attempt to tame the air? Until it gives way to brutal shearing force, wrenching the tiny fan into the sky in a final exuberant tumble.

The electricity cuts out at intervals and suddenly the light outside is intruding into my private space. There is no happy yellow glow emitting from my familiar windows, instead, out there, tree bone silhouettes pop up like black paper scenery.

The light flickers on, the radio resumes and I am back in my cosy homeland; my heaps of woollen blankets and heavy sheepskin, my personal riches of blue velvet curtains and worn wooden floor.

Earlier I watched the sheep outside my window. I watched a ram trotting head down, now with purpose and now benign; stalking a ewe with stiff legged innocent steps until it was close enough to quickly move forward and push its face into the scent between her legs. She moved away, startled.

The wind has infected the horses, they run in short, jerking steps, tossing their heads. There is a moment of blowing; rushing and rising, as if they fly, high and outwards with this quick flick of energy, over trees and fences.

I have just returned from the main trailer, picking my way, candlelit, through the garden. One more thing.

In the main trailer there is a huge apple, the size of my two clenched fists. Picked like a prize pearl from a heap of sliding apples, saved from a mere mundane death, it sits in our kitchen like royalty. Blushing from red to yellow, this dappled prize is pert and perfect. It's a picture of an apple, magnified and made flesh.

I want to write across your skin oh apple. I want to engrave loving words into your flesh. Oh ideal apple, our adored exhibit, I will carve clear curling poetry that will stand fresh at first in a shock of white then fade and brown in your ageing; a slow hymn to your shrinking, your dignified descent into fold and decay.

There is no end to this letter, just a fade to sleep. The wind continues, unremitting. When I go outside it is as if I am caught within and dragged into the air. The wind pushes us and takes all within itself; we are no longer solid, only blown through like pieces of tiny leaf, nameless.

2 comments:

Nikki (www.bookpunks.com) said...

Yesterday the wind did something outside (I can only assume it was the wiley wind) that sounding lie an enormous person grabbing onto the corner of our wagon and shaking it. Which scared the shit of me. I consequently got the first blunt object I could find (an iron, which was somehow amusingly ridiculous) and went a hunting, but there was nothing there but the adrenaline fueled pounding in my chest.

white pine honey said...

hey thanks for the comment!

have we met?