Numbers, Monsters And A Samurai Strawberry
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| Polytunnel In Winter. Limes to the right, sprouts to the left. |
Mr and me read the sum of our achievements from last year’s signed off accounts.
‘Hmmm…’ (A phrase that should not be translated politely and thus is left as is.)
One of us fills the kettle.
Monsters stick with you, they are not just for childhood.
They slick along the sidelines, breathing warmth into doubtful blooms.
No escape is found in the winter garden.
Under perspex shelter the lime has dropped its fruit.
A wall of rain compounds the isolation.
Why are we here? In this sad and beautiful place?
One finger reaches out to trace the shape of a leaf. Imagines, gently, that this is the colour, perhaps the same curve, as a monster’s head?
Smiles, then.
Are they as you wish them, these slinking fears?
Three times, four times? We have lost a home, made a new place for ourselves. It has been close. This feels close: teeth at heels.
A sprout is pinched from a stem and crunched.
There was a samurai, the story says, a tiger chased him to the edge of a cliff. He climbed down and saw a bear pacing hungry at the foot of this cliff. His perch was precarious. Wild strawberries grew within reach: not in enough abundance to placate a bear. He ate one. It was the best strawberry he had ever had.
Rain crumbles, and the starlings sing.
Indoors, left by the kettle, the sum remains the same. Imaginary monsters snooze by the Rayburn.
‘Hmmm…’ (A phrase that should not be translated politely and thus is left as is.)
One of us fills the kettle.
Monsters stick with you, they are not just for childhood.
They slick along the sidelines, breathing warmth into doubtful blooms.
No escape is found in the winter garden.
Under perspex shelter the lime has dropped its fruit.
A wall of rain compounds the isolation.
Why are we here? In this sad and beautiful place?
One finger reaches out to trace the shape of a leaf. Imagines, gently, that this is the colour, perhaps the same curve, as a monster’s head?
Smiles, then.
Are they as you wish them, these slinking fears?
Three times, four times? We have lost a home, made a new place for ourselves. It has been close. This feels close: teeth at heels.
A sprout is pinched from a stem and crunched.
There was a samurai, the story says, a tiger chased him to the edge of a cliff. He climbed down and saw a bear pacing hungry at the foot of this cliff. His perch was precarious. Wild strawberries grew within reach: not in enough abundance to placate a bear. He ate one. It was the best strawberry he had ever had.
Rain crumbles, and the starlings sing.
Indoors, left by the kettle, the sum remains the same. Imaginary monsters snooze by the Rayburn.
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| If you look hard enough, you can clearly imagine strawberries. |
Comments
In any event, our long conversation included the difference between demons and shadow. Shadow is a part of us that longs for acceptance and to be intergrated. Demons, well, according to us, those are the forces that would set teeth to our heels. But then Shawn called them something else: illusions. For, finally, good wins. Why, then, I sit there and think, all the pain in the interim?
'Perhaps they are the very things that make (us) reach further and think and bigger.'
Which is oft easier said than done... but without these struggles we understand less. Sodden winters are the toughest to appreciate, especially for a desert flower. Here's hoping we reach and think far enough to make it all feel worthwhile - and looking forward to that future coffee whatever the weather :-) xx
xx