Feral

Coffee cup basks, sits on my desk, idly steaming. Clouds are lit up, rolling past, processional. Over the river, white birds with sun struck feathers fly.

I walked Dog up to the cut wheat field, which is part dug over, which is becoming the field where the wheat was. Followed the turned earth, the stark chopped hedge that looks like winter, sharp bladed winter. I heard something; I could believe it was the sound of birds, or I could believe, there, the air warbles. Breathed deep; damp earth fresh sky. Under booted feet a soft soil thump. Three blackberries squish, tangy, in a chomp of molars.

Back to my desk, to think, to quiver at lists, all the snarly details that aren’t so bad if you just pick through them. Sigh deep: desultory picking follows. I long to lounge and read a book. Naughty eyes sneak to the window. I fidget for more coffee. Hours are slippery, tiredness glutinous.

At the end of a dark drive homewards, reverse clumsily up to our front door. Rain falls, feels like fine wet lace. I believe that the night has a different scent, is a different world. The pampas grass, with its slicing nasty leaves, waves, windswept, waves like a beach storm. Drops of coal overfill the scuttle, clack clack clack, while the feral grass communes.