Autumn Cottage Diarist

River of Stones '12/#29

Small Stone #29

On the compost heap

Last week’s cherry tomatoes, still intact

Untouched by little vole and mousey teeth

Co-habitants with the wood-lice,

The still-wriggling, brandling worms,

The deep-in-cobwebbed spiders,

All seeing out the winter

In their cosy, lidded wooden bunker.

River of Stones '12/#28

Small Stone #28

Farewell to our old Galaxy,
People carrier, War Horse,
Off to the knacker’s yard,
Sold up, stripped down,
pillaged, crushed.

Our family Magic Chariot in your youth
Through the mists of Glencoe To the Highlands,
Skirting sheer mountain paths of the Islands,
South to skim the sunbaked roads of France

There, in your worn-out old age,
you sickened and failed,
Towed home in indignity
Languished, rusted,
Jump-lead sputtered your last few gasps today,
Left our gates for the last time, forever.

River of Stones '12/#27

Small Stone #27

In the footsteps of Old Magnificent, the new, handsome, visiting cock Pheasant paces cautiously up through the grass, scanning back and forth for lurking threats. Burnished, glinting breast feathers in the sunlight, he catches sight of me, returning from the feeder table where I have sprinkled seedly temptation before him.

Still too nervous to run towards me (as his predecessor habitually did), he turns and 'legs it' back down the garden, stately, clerical, head rhythmically jutting forward at each increasing step, with as much speed and dignity as can be mustered (the first quickly triumphing over the second!) 

I can see him now, from the safety of the bushes, watching, still, peering up at the house, waiting for the chance of the next foray

River of Stones '12/#26

Small Stone #26

Sitting, guiltily, on a winter afternoon, with my reward (for filing my tax return!) of a new novel to read. The paperback pages are not complying with my wish to keep them apart – my cold, stiff, arthritic  fingers are not up to the job of restraining them.  So I’m recruiting the assistance of a blanket, a cardigan, a cup of hot blackcurrant tea – and maybe a click up on the usually frugal heating.

I love this old cottage – but today it is a love that is compromised by chill January winds, which are finding their way between 300 years of bricks and timbers.

River of Stones '12/#25

Small Stone #25

In this moment, intrigued, pre-occupied and constantly poking the springy surface tension of the single large and many small blisters between my thumb and forefinger – the result of a blow-back of boiling water when filling a hot-water bottle last night. Blebs surrounded by inflammation, which itself has a firm, delineated edge - bubbles floating on a  pond of ointment pink, set in a field of fleshly white.

River of Stones '12/#24

Small Stone #24

The task for today:
Filtering the contents of the boxes
for special items, mementos, heirlooms.
Wrapping them again,
together with their stories in little written notes,
my messages to loved ones of the future.
Couched in stories of the present,
interleaved with those of the ancestors,
fragments of the past, passed down to me.
Between us all, stitching the stories together,
Many threads embroider, intertwine and bind.

River of Stones '12/#23

Small Stone #23

All afternoon in the garage - clearing, shifting, sorting
Games, old clothes, china for the Blue Cross.
A scratching inside one storage bag,
and lifting three old tennis balls…
A Peacock butterfly, slowly opening and closing its wings.
Stretching, wondering…‘is Springtime here?’
Gently, I lift it onto crumpled newspaper
to find safety in the rustling folds once more,
To wait until the proper wakening time is come.

River of Stones '12/#22

Small Stone #22

In January

The produce of the vine does not come wrapped

In sweet, juicy, purple, popping capsules,

But as gnarled branches,

Dug out from the gutter in which they have rooted

Held aloft by valiant Alec’s bleeding fingers,

and to my tentative enquiry for ’anything plantable??’

He triumphantly announces ‘pot up this!!!’

 

River of Stones '12/#21

Small Stone #21

BLEEERRGHHH!!! Roars the wolf

Through the backdrop curtain!

Half a dozen tots startle and wail…

…within seconds, Mr. Wolf is a soppy sycophant

Telling fart and wee-wee jokes –

Generations double up with laughter together

Subversion wins the day!

River of Stones '12/#20

Small Stone #20

In the second kitchen,
I spy two empty cat-food tins,
tossed into the festering maw of the general trash.

Before they are swallowed up in that Hell-Hole,
I fervently rescue them
Reverentially wash and dry them
Present them, smugly, as an offering
To the open, waiting arms
Of the Great Recycling Bin.

I fear enslavement
to a New Religion...