| Chris Neenan ITALY neenanc@yahoo.com Horsenden Hill Pastorals I This is what happens once every year. I turn a corner into the woodland path and the surprise of delayed summer suddenly becomes deep autumn and too close to dodge. Near the car park gate the spread fingers of blackberries lead down by one swollen fly hangs just above eye level, that annunciation of year on year, coming back despite the wears and the wanting, the mould of wood and hedgerows and migrant birds and butterflies. I read the eyes on the wings on red flies, their complex laws holding the deep lights of creation. They suffer million variations in one leap from spring to autumn, a deep space pointed, the light voyaging still years and to break the monotony of time. Every year that surprises me. ii I never saw the blackberries so perfect And ripe together so early In the year. What does it? Not only A chance happening here And there, but all the way down The path and canal walk It is the same story. Blackberries Firm to pick, black jet Light holding the juices back That not a stain touches my fingers. This is how they must have been in Eden, perfect. ‘Well, but we didn’t have a summer’ said John. ‘Worse still, by all statistics, it was the coldest and nearly the wettest July in recorded history.’ But I am just a visitor to his garden, coming in August when the wind has turned and England’s green patches show what Eden could be like and fruit can be picked by human hand, perfect and without stain. © All Copyright, 2000,
Chris Neenan. |
