a day of half-health & grumpiness, finally I walk circles around the Buddha with my friends & everything settles and shines

the sky offers us its usual show
(sun-shot blue, teased out cloud wisp)
regardless of whether we look

two empty chairs in the corner of the lawn shrink from the shade, seeking sun

he carries the grey kitten under his arm like a bag of books. she seems unperturbed, but takes her chance and runs when I engage him in conversation and he moves his arm. he hovers around my back door, wanting to come in. i learn his name, the name of both kittens, his little 'brother' amelia. the conversation is easier than it often is with grown-ups.

the skies smeared with orange

I hear an irregular heart-beat as my neighbour pounds his punch-ball to death, over and over again

spattered sunlight on the deep blue rug
restless gaps between the swaying bamboo leaves

note to self

words won't be hurried. breathe.

conversation with myself

no time to stop
not true
no time to breathe
not true
no time for lemon & ginger tea
not true

dessicated palm fronds, the colour of tea, scrape at the window with their fingertips

a walk on the Malverns

he stands on the hills and screams at the world. we catch fragments as the wind turns towards us and away. ....GOD!.... ....BETRAYED!.... ....FUCKING ANTI-CHRIST!.... the world has let him down, and us too - we laugh at him in his pain.

Silver's empty chair.

The sun-saturated sky is dappled all over with dabs of white cloud. A sliver of moon, like a thinly sliced piece of apple, is lingering.

dysfunction bubbles up, rot at the bottom of the pond

candle-accident

he finds the dried wax on my trousers later - a permanent record of glorious tumbling spill

during morning service

a tiny creature with y-shaped antennae crawls across the desert expanse of wall towards the mirror. i feel inexplicably fond of him. so many lives. so many lives.

the cream thin-spread on my hands shines phosphorescent in the lamplight

I tell him I can't look yet. He looks under the car for me. "I'm sorry. She's definitely dead." The love in his voice, this stranger, this passer-by. The love.

(for Silver)

communing with cows

we sit with the cows: caramel, dirty white, black. they come forwards and go back. one dares to touch my finger with his wet nose. they don't want anything from us. they watch us with their big eyes, fringed with long thick lashes.

micro-interaction

the take-away delivery man is grateful for the 20p change I don't ask for, and I wish I'd given him more

domestic life

after tipping vegetable peelings & tea-bags into the compost, coming back inside to clumps of silver-tabby hair on the seat cushion & the stink of gone-over cat food drifting in from the kitchen.

evening service

I worry about remembering the words until I remember to leave myself out of it

11.35pm: what we found in the kitchen

five fat slugs

bright tatters / the last of the roses.

the wood-pigeon reminds me to turn my computer off.

Colwall to Ledbury

trilobites in a cottage wall. a field of cut stalks, pale green, vertical. stained glass & pews. butterflies absorbing sun. the dizzy heights of Oyster Hill. shady wood. a black&white graffiti badger. blisters. friendship. at our destination: creamy white chocolate ice-cream with crimson raspberry streaks.

strands of fur hang from the hinge of the cat-flap, tremble in the breeze

resting on the gravel

a spent curled petal 

from a 'Joseph's Coat' rose 

a single cornflower-blue bloom above the clusters of dark autumn berries

lone crow dresses a silver chimney

therapy hour

when it gets too much, we look at the flickering flame