Saturday, a bursting hot day,
hardly a whisper of cloud around, enough to notice the skies not completely blue in places,
blue still blue.
Late into the evening, late dinner awaiting the arrival of family and friends, the instant urge to be out amongst fields, crops two foot high already, the late sunshine, a light breeze and enough to stir the hayfever,
ah-chu.
No need for boots, just put some footwear on that grips the bumpy ground along the footpath.
It's all good, two friends walking their dogs, no care or worry it's a beautiful evening.
Up over the hill and into a chalk grassland site, rare for the area now (the sign says), farmers taking over the land from once it was. The rabbits burrowing in, the coppiced stumps unchanged in a month, the hedgerows trimmed.
The blue skies seen from all around across the hills, everything is green, the hedgerows blossom whitening, one harvested field alone, golden brown, reflecting the remaining sunshine on the opposite hillside.
The sheep will always be on the site nearby, generations of sheep gone by and coming.
People will come and go, time will continue on as blue skies come and go.
(But the sheep will remain the same.)
One day history will tell our story, pictures of our past,
your childhood brushing past with each step along the footpath and around the site,
a knowing you'll be with those people already gone after months and years.
A welling up of those lost after only weeks or minutes of knowing:
a secret knowledge on the doorstep between two strangers,
a twinkle, a smile...a look, infectious,
no more.
*
Memories running in the parks at age five, with parents screaming back to be careful,
all abliss to the warmth in the day, the trees to hide behind,
friends, brothers and sisters to squeeze, chase,
the sand for castles from earlier gradually dissolving under waves at the beach,
the moat around the parents on the beach towel filling up,
trying to make the day last longer.
*
The sunshine dropping and making one last punch of brightness into the sky, bright but cool,
increasing shades for the day to close on, take the route home down the hillside
where hundreds have trodden before,
where the train line once went,
where the married couples once walked,
where the horses once pulled carriages,
now just a path, girls and boys used to giggle and play hide and seek,
where it all remains still and silent...
the hedgeline trimmed by you after years of knowing it,
the hedgeline as much a friend as anyone else,
trees standing on,
(every inch known of them by your childhood and now grown skills,
they knowing every inch of the land around here,)
to out live you and your children,
summer sunshine to give warmth and happiness,
sunshine of the past, sunshine for now,
sunshine...in view, for miles around across the fields,
to continue the journey,
and a question of where that twinkle, that smile is now,
to complete the future
to grow a new hedgeline with you for next time,
with the trees holding the keys to the past, looking on,
awaiting the next set of kids games, giggles, memories and regrown hedgerows.
On down the hill back in to the quietened village,
scented smells of cooking food,
no one around, just abandoned,
stillness in the air,
emptiness from within and from without, comforting,
the blue sky dissolving with the heat for the return to the present,
the childhood living on in the shadows,
no one to hold on to, but a star somewhere up in the air,
awaiting the future,
never to hold with you.
hardly a whisper of cloud around, enough to notice the skies not completely blue in places,
blue still blue.
Late into the evening, late dinner awaiting the arrival of family and friends, the instant urge to be out amongst fields, crops two foot high already, the late sunshine, a light breeze and enough to stir the hayfever,
ah-chu.
No need for boots, just put some footwear on that grips the bumpy ground along the footpath.
It's all good, two friends walking their dogs, no care or worry it's a beautiful evening.
Up over the hill and into a chalk grassland site, rare for the area now (the sign says), farmers taking over the land from once it was. The rabbits burrowing in, the coppiced stumps unchanged in a month, the hedgerows trimmed.
The blue skies seen from all around across the hills, everything is green, the hedgerows blossom whitening, one harvested field alone, golden brown, reflecting the remaining sunshine on the opposite hillside.
The sheep will always be on the site nearby, generations of sheep gone by and coming.
People will come and go, time will continue on as blue skies come and go.
(But the sheep will remain the same.)
One day history will tell our story, pictures of our past,
your childhood brushing past with each step along the footpath and around the site,
a knowing you'll be with those people already gone after months and years.
A welling up of those lost after only weeks or minutes of knowing:
a secret knowledge on the doorstep between two strangers,
a twinkle, a smile...a look, infectious,
no more.
*
Memories running in the parks at age five, with parents screaming back to be careful,
all abliss to the warmth in the day, the trees to hide behind,
friends, brothers and sisters to squeeze, chase,
the sand for castles from earlier gradually dissolving under waves at the beach,
the moat around the parents on the beach towel filling up,
trying to make the day last longer.
*
The sunshine dropping and making one last punch of brightness into the sky, bright but cool,
increasing shades for the day to close on, take the route home down the hillside
where hundreds have trodden before,
where the train line once went,
where the married couples once walked,
where the horses once pulled carriages,
now just a path, girls and boys used to giggle and play hide and seek,
where it all remains still and silent...
the hedgeline trimmed by you after years of knowing it,
the hedgeline as much a friend as anyone else,
trees standing on,
(every inch known of them by your childhood and now grown skills,
they knowing every inch of the land around here,)
to out live you and your children,
summer sunshine to give warmth and happiness,
sunshine of the past, sunshine for now,
sunshine...in view, for miles around across the fields,
to continue the journey,
and a question of where that twinkle, that smile is now,
to complete the future
to grow a new hedgeline with you for next time,
with the trees holding the keys to the past, looking on,
awaiting the next set of kids games, giggles, memories and regrown hedgerows.
On down the hill back in to the quietened village,
scented smells of cooking food,
no one around, just abandoned,
stillness in the air,
emptiness from within and from without, comforting,
the blue sky dissolving with the heat for the return to the present,
the childhood living on in the shadows,
no one to hold on to, but a star somewhere up in the air,
awaiting the future,
never to hold with you.
Codex: The King of Limbs, Radiohead
