The Greenwood Horse

In a western land far from China, the New Lunar Year starts with the cold element of water: it comes in the form of rain. A writer sits at her desk that is also the dining table and a sometimes home for itinerant objects. She favours the chair that faces the room's double windows; admires the view of clustered plant pots and washing draped for drying, the toys left out and a dog changing sleep positions on the leather shine of the sofa. Rain dots and stripes the outer panes, opaques the horizon.

Any new start provokes future thoughts; she thinks; and beyond the fascination of the weather her thoughts wander. Is there a perceivable energy of time patterns? This year represented by a horse, by the element of wood, a masculine force, the colour green: what comes next? Uncertainty is essential: it is the medium of faith. But what does come next? She thinks of horseshoes printed in mud: when they change direction it is done in a curve; where the head points the hooves follow, one step after another. The next step comes next: the direction seems correct. But if one cannot see beyond the rain, it is not important: perhaps it does not exist at all.

She imagines a creature, a green stallion, a steam of exertion rising from gleaming flanks; limbs of living wood; and lets it run free.