28th November from the West Cliff Green, Bournemouth
Autumn is the time for seeing things. Shapes, colours, even getting a good look at the sky. The summer softens and smooths everything. There are flowers and birds to look at but in the autumn and winter there is the underlying skeleton of the world. The shapes and colours of the bark on the trees are clearly visible now that the undergrowth has died back. The shape leaves take as they clump and mulch on the grass. An exciting, dynamic time. The wind blows and the sea roars. And on the bare branches of a gorse bush there is the figure of a wren hopping about and while another wren carols away. Its voice so much bigger than seems possible from such a tiny bird. A fly with gorgeous blue wings and glittering eyes settles on the rugged pink, green and brown bark of a pine trunk.
From 28th November 2018
It's some years since I've seen any real sign of badgers on the West Cliff: some scrapes on trees that might have been used as a claw sharpening post and some scrapes in the damp earth that might have been Brock rootling for delicious grubs and bulbs. Sadly, The West Cliff is now a favourite place for dog walkers and badgers and dogs do not get on, so I thought he had packed his traps and was off. But tonight I met him on the path, a juvenile, I think, keeping low against the hedge and out of the weather. Sadly I was upwind of him and as soon as he pinged me he turned and scuttled off into the darkness. (NB Badgers can be female, of course, but Brock is a generic name so I hope you will forgive me.)
Later
The great grey green greasy channel rollers, crests already ragged and torn like white lace, are rising up to begin breaking far off the beach so that for at least a hundred metres the sea is a wild cauldron of boiling white water. Even though we are only a quarter of an hour away from low water, the surf is scouring right up the beach to the promenade. The wind clamour is competing with the continuous single bull-roar of the sea. One or two crows are thrown about like scraps of burnt paper on the cliff top. Whilst another hops lugubriously on the wet grass and complains to me about the weather.
From 28th November 2017
Rattling Bones
The rattling bones of the old year
Will not lie down
Will not lie down
One last dance under a hard moon
Out on the town
Out on the town
One last mocking sarabande
In a moth eaten gown
Moth eaten gown.
Yet Calando dolente she must lie down
In leaf frosted snow
In leaf frosted snow
Her rattling bones in music unborn
Echoing down
Echoing down
