Tales from the edge of the morning sky

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Again, he had the choice. And this time he stepped over himself. Flicking off his shoes, tearing his shirt off, releasing his trousers to the sand at his feet he ran and plunged deep into the beckoning waters.

The water was surprisingly warm, but heavy and still. The thickness of it made him struggle at first until he stopped fighting. A crowd of birds had flown into the sky as his dive had cut the sky reflected waters into ribbons and ripples of storm and cloud.

Overhead the wind whipped and whistled as the birds wheeled, arched and fell in the unpredictability of the tattered and torn streams of air. The rain hissed off the surface, the sky darkened still further, in gales and blasts of thunder.

He could see her clamber up the bank, a bedraggled figure as ragged as the ship and sails that towered over her as it came ever closer to the shingle beach.

He was nearly upon the other side. The pull and tug of the waters, heavy, as he balanced his need to get to her as swiftly as possible and yet preserve enough energy for the beaching when it inevitably came.

He chanced a look behind him. He could just see the church in the meadow, so close, so very close to the shore. The sky seemed to press down upon the roof, the island of trees planted to protect both the church and the thinning congregations, flailed in every direction, tossing wildly in a kind of frenzy that made his steady swim into the past even more unreal.

He felt her calling and turned back towards the bar and Emily.

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The mizzen, main and foremasts pointed like crooked fingers to a moon that had risen in bouts of blindness, high ahead, in the rush of clouds, ragged and broken, tearing in blinks of shadow, darkness, and fleeting moments of broken light.

The roar of sea and sky flung the silence that they shared into the beaten grass beneath their feet. They were standing now. Supporting each other, leaning almost horizontally into the blast.

It was happening again. He couldn’t hold her. She slipped out of his grasp as her corporeal form seemed to dissipate into the heavy suddenness of rain that thundered into the lagoon, with a thousand heartbeats of silence upon the marram topped dunes.

She ran. He could see her still. Kicking off her coat, shawl, and shoes, she plunged into the fleet and started to swim, struggling against the pull of the wind and the hidden grasp of the waters.

She was strong. Again he saw her. And again he questioned himself. It always ended here. The explosive breach of the bar, the immense crash and collapse of the schooner as it lurched high on a monstrous wave, then hit, scraped and shattered against the screaming pebbles and the seething backwash of the flood.

He could see the men jump from horizontal masts, broken like matchsticks, jump from the vertical gunwales. See them all slip, fall and struggle, as the ship lurched against the breach, trapped.

She reached the berm, the crescent of shingle, and crawled heavily up the incline, drenched and exhausted. She stopped. Turned. Waved at him. Beckoned for him to follow. He saw beyond the bar, further out to sea, a second crescendo of waves coming in. 

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‘John, John,’ she whispered again, ‘Are we there yet?’

He turned and looked out across the fleet, beyond the skies and to the edge of his world. Quietly he whispered back

‘Almost my love, almost, take me back, take me back to the storm once again. 

And all at once, the sky seemed to seethe and  darken.

As if the world had been shaken, held in the grasp of ferocious hands, the view shattered into thunderous rain. There was no difference between the clash and roar of the bar of rounded stones and the hardness of pebbles, as the sea mightily pounded in gusts of grey and steel against the broken beach.

He held her tight. Gasping for breath as she tried to free herself from him, break free and run. Run madly, crazily, into the wind that threatened to hurl them both like rag dolls into the open jaws of a screaming sky.

They could both see it. Against the horizon.Like a splattered fly against the glass. A ship leaning over. Sails torn and flapping. Figures like ants struggling to right the ship that was threatening to capsize as it rolled down and along great walls of waves and sinking reflections of a raging, simmering, sky. 

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He felt her hand press his own. Reassurance. Affirmation. He never really knew.

Each time anew.

The grass was over grown again. Few people came here. Even fewer knew the place as he did. The immense skies, a constant theatre of changing clouds, above the great moving silence of the sea. And behind the great berm, the haven for all with wings and calling, the lagoon of calm and unruffled waters that mirrored the beauty of the place.

They stepped over the low, now dry, run of the spring, the damselflies darting busily, scooping a myriad of nats, clouds of activity,in the late afternoon warmth and sun.

The kissing gate led further, as the pathway edged the mud and marram grasses at the edge of the unkempt abandoned fields.

She held his hand tighter. They were coming to their place, a refuge from the winds that twisted the trees in knots and branches, all bent and wrapped in invisible hands from the westerlies that had pushed ship and sail along the channel behind the Isle of Portland, for generations.

The path was mostly overgrown here. The fence rotten and fallen, a few sheep grazed upon the borders, seagulls cried overhead and the wind sighed and fell, sighed and fell, ripening across the rippling wheatgrass.

‘Here,’ he heard her whisper, ‘here will do just fine.’ Emily’s voice was as light as the breeze. He could feel her summer dress ripple against his bare legs, almost smell her perfume as they sat down together on the rug he had brought with him from the car.

‘John,’ she whispered, softly into his ear, ‘John, can you see me again, am I still real for you?’

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Fleet

Almost hidden. Along the path, beside the cottages, parallel to the cobbled road, the sunken old church was hidden from view. The bend in the road took most drivers, walkers, and the occasional cyclist, past the new church to the camping and caravan park that huddled, straggling in knots along the thin strip of land that separated the folding waves of the fields from the lagoon, the shifting shingle of the bar, and beyond, the empty skies and further still, the sullen sea.

They walked to the gate, lifted the latch and followed the footpath hand in hand, under the glistening thousands of silver green leaves that rustled drily in the late afternoon wind.

The pathway was firm underfoot, the sand compacted, with a thin layer of grass, moss and clipped clover, that led them deeper into the dusk and the looming nave of the abandoned place of former worship.

The flood of 1824 had breached the wall of shingle, the nine mile scimitar of moving stones that protected the lagoon from the channel. The weathered headstones pointed like blunted fingers at the low passing clouds. The wind blew again in great sighs, blustery whispers, moaning gently to the forgotten dead.

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Tonight (Time and Distance)

It’s windy tonight. 

The telegraph wires rolling under the skies, skimming clouds, racing inland from the sunsetting west. 

And the road winds, grey in haste and evening black, a distant car growls and blinks, hurrying homeward before the hiss and blow of the last of showers. 

For above, there is a racing moon behind the skies, the silence of stars, the cusp of shattered hillsides, the end of summer, slipping into August.

For the end of days still holds, and yet stands within the ancient oak,its leaves crisp, dry.

Crumpled greens at the crossroads, where an empty lane from the twilight east runs, flows, into the last fires and glows of a fading west.

And just here, here beside the red letter box, the abandoned footpath, the ancient sign blindly pointing into a trespassing dark, there are no footsteps.

Just byways, the whispers of passing hours beneath the hidden churchyard.

The bell tower chiming into the gloaming, calling, calling into the memories of a distance long since passed.

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Six bells

Six bells,

the first call 

to morning,

I’d never believe 

it was so still 

and July, 

for the early morning 

is with mist 

and wreathes 

of hanging clouds, 

the summer heat 

has simply gone, 

slipped under 

the warning bark 

of crows, 

for the earth 

is wet, 

with furrows 

of running water, 

like afterthoughts, 

forgotten thoughts, 

empty thoughts, 

the runnels 

of memories, 

the collapsing dreaming 

of the lost

and drowning 

of spring, 

and although

the balcony is empty, 

chairs glistening 

in the cool 

and dawning wind, 

facing blindly, 

the blank disc 

of silver grey, 

the hidden hands

of a weakening sun.

August…waits, 

behind the closing 

summer dark.

As the  crows bark 

again, 

and again

following 

the six bells 

still chiming.

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Storm

It’s here, 

ominous, 

the sky deepening, 

the black dusk

in dark fists 

of clouds, 

thickening blindly, 

overhead. 

Everything is still, 

waiting, 

a great thirst 

covers the brittle, 

dry, 

and empty earth, 

even the birds 

have stopped 

singing, 

hidden in the forest,

seemingly empty 

of life,

and silent 

in the hushed quiet 

of a million voices 

closed,

in the futile grasp 

of leaves, 

there’s a pressing, 

a weight 

of heaviness, 

the sky pushing, 

down against 

a vanquished wind.

And the first drops 

are heavy, 

a thousand thousand eyelids 

closing, 

suddenly, 

a great flood 

of summer tears, 

falling, 

releasing,

fragrances thick 

and wonderful, 

until as unbounded 

as they started, 

falling, 

they stop.

A split 

of sky, 

splinters 

of light. 

And rolling 

thunder,

covers the earth 

with yielding gold.

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She walked

She walked 

along the sidewalk

in the early morning

of December,

beautiful

through the dull, 

the dark 

and grey, 

her face 

a picture 

of springtime, 

the promise 

of summer 

who walked

beside her,

never having 

gone away.

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Broken Sky

Lightning bolts

the rattle battle 

of thunder storms

spectacular castles, 

and cathedral clouds, 

Another day 

to end.

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