The Silver Trumpet Brayed

That sorry friend is returned I fear, rising from the damp twigs and mud that clog the cleats of my shoes. I catch a glimpse of a shadow now and then, hear footsteps in the dark and feel the heavy heat of recent visitors lingering in the cold of un-heated rooms. This witch, this sad witch whose sorry life has no more to commend it than a series of disconnected ventures is home again, home where she belongs doing what she has always done and getting what she has always got.

posted by Weasel @ 5:53 PM 0 comments

Doors are opening easily. Not an image, a reality, doors are opening easily. Last night when I returned to my car, the door opened easily as though it were not properly locked, then when I arrived home the door opened easily as though it were not properly locked. This morning when I went to my fridge the door opened easily as though it were already part open. This puzzles me.

posted by Weasel @ 8:56 AM 0 comments

So many wheels are turning but it is always the wheel you are not watching which makes that vital move and brings the whole edifice tumbling down.

So now, that edifice which only a day ago seemed so secure is tottering on the edge of destruction. Maybe there is only a little year to go before it falls. And a year is not enough.

Two years, three years better, and I could weather it, but one year, no, it's not enough.

Are these bastards really going to kick me again. At every important point they have kicked me, put their boots in when I could least suffer it, at the start, at the crisis and now again at the end.

posted by Weasel @ 11:36 PM 0 comments

What did he say - the road goes ever on and on? The greater part of that road is behind me, the best part? - I don't know. Autumn was always my season, greater gold and all that. What promises to come, but what are promises?

The speaking of names in important places is important. Willow did not come to the village, but we spoke her name and so she was there. That final death the last time your name is spoken and once again that realisation that one always knows the first time one does a thing, but rarely the last. The last goodbye when one only means it to last a little time and only later come to know that it will last forever.

How much of that road still to travel? How many miles? And is there promise of bed when I arrive, and if there is that promise, what are promises? Is the silver trumpet braying?

posted by Weasel @ 7:12 PM 0 comments

Follow that dream, follow that vision, follow the girl with the flaxen hair out beyond the lights of the village and on into the darkness that leads to another world. Follow her, if you can find her, and let her lead you to places that are only in your dreams. And she will lead you, if you let her, on and on beyond the warm lights of the village, further than the great tree out on the moor, what, further than that? And what is there, what lies beyond those lights?

What's there, out there on the heath where the pine tree grows and mad Tom walks (the pine tree again - how potent an image) He is Malcolm, 40 and looking for love and here is the 30 year old single mum from fife lonely and looking for friendship. And the ugly girl from Scunthorpe.

The river runs across our main road but does not slow us and the walk from one sad boundary to the other takes only a minute or two. From the church and its bones to the pit on the outskirts of town takes only a moment past the house where my grandfather lived and worked. It is the walk I walked from home to school so many times and did not know. It was there I ate almost on his doorstep and did not know - did I soak in so much there on the outskirts of town and the road that leads away?

posted by Weasel @ 8:39 PM 0 comments

Over there, that tree - that tree on the top of the hill, a solitary walker going who knows where. Such a slow gait, slow and uncertain and taking ages to trudge that yard we would stride in a second.

posted by Weasel @ 8:21 PM 0 comments

And so tonight, and the first time for a long time, a sense of loss. But how can one sense the loss of something one never had in the first place. Or maybe I did have it, maybe it was really there and maybe, like McCartney's poor boy, I never really knew.

I remember that day when waiting on a street corner I saw that treasure approaching, and I remember how I felt and how I longed to have it for myself. Then, as it drew closer I realised that it was indeed already my treasure, the treasure I already held in my hand, it was mine and no-one elses. How could I let such gold slip from my grasp.

But it's not just that, greater things have eluded me, greater joys departed. There's little here and the only gold gleams in the bottom of a glass. Here's my salvation, here's the way home (for my feet are loathe to carry me). It's a long way home, but the longer road is behind me and the lights of home are there to see just beyond that hill (but my steps are slow and the joys they promised sadly absent)

posted by Weasel @ 8:03 PM 0 comments