Branches Abound

A disorganisation of bumpy, stained stones, Sandy olives beneath Mossy pockets of flowers And ruptured mortar. A sun drenched lime backing Crumbling ruins, Abseiling platform Hosting a multitude Of alien life forms. Charlotte

Laboured stones Rough stones Stones of dismay Honest stones Pocketed stones Hidden stones Fractured stones Unstable stones Foundation stones Clumsy stones Ancient stones Split stones Abbey stones Stephanie

Beneath the oak I sit and contemplate Worries blown away with the wind Lapping waves at my shore Refresh my thoughts Anon.

Caspar David Friedrich, 'Wanderer above a Sea of Fog' (c.1818) She once said I looked like a graceful swan drifting serene across the surface of the water, giving no clue to the feet paddling so furiously beneath me. It was a cliché, small comfort unless you are obsessed with appearances. His wandering, like mine, is threatened by the drifting mist that twists and turns, obscuring paths that lie ahead, decisions that weigh so heavily on lesser minds, not lightly made. Masterful he looks, above this boiling sea, so nicely turned out, so dapper in his neatly tailored coat, perched high above the reach of such disorder, never likely to muddy his resolve. Webbed feet paddle beneath me so constantly I am not always aware. I dress well, tie back my unruly hair leaving a wisp or two free to roam. I do not want to look severe. But the fog creeps. Julia

Cropped birch Waves scratching The shore Dropping lime green oaks Towering pines Rising above the moss drenched rock Candyfloss hawthorn softly breaking the dappled shaded rock. Maureen

We walk the shoreline down in that dark dip at year’s end, while life’s still slumbering. The beach is a graveyard. We clamber, beneath ominous skies, through cathedrals of bones. Beached giants, prone on the sand, gaunt skeletons, arms uplifted, feet still reluctant to leave. In the lifetime of my children, these dinosaurs, these mighty oaks have fallen, their forms sculpted by time and weather, yet even in death they hold such power. They lie, steadfast as ever, awesome, majestic, statuesque, garlanded with gifts from the river: soft green fronds, little crabs, bladder wrack decorating their fingers. For centuries they stood strong, hearing the river’s song: ebb, flow, winter, spring, tide and moon rising, falling, curlew calling, calling. We will walk the shorelines at that bright time of new beginnings, now we are awakening. Jan Armstrong Photo by Daniel Lincoln via Unsplash

Hot and sultry, early June, sitting on my doorstep, late afternoon, watching the traffic flying by: skylarks, melodious, up high; swallows above the stable, diving around the sky; buzzards in tandem, cruising above the dark woods; rooks, darkly purposeful, circling over the pines; wood-pigeons, fat and fast, flying noisily by; two pairs of wild geese landing in the paddock; low-flying blackbird dashing across my field of vision; bumblebee, bluebottle, ladybird buzzing about the apple tree. To say nothing of the that on the ground: magpie striding decisively; a gang of crows on the path, conspiratorial; fifteen guinea fowl in haste, holding their skirts, their rasping calls jarring; yearling pea-hen, tame, hand-reared, pecking my bare toe; two little partridges scurrying by; a pheasant in his finery; a pair of collared doves, courting prettily; five hens, four black and one gold, busy-bodying around; two cockerels, one young, the other magnificent, strutting self-importantly. Oh so bus...

Mid-tide, I lay bemused, sun and breeze upon my face, pebbles hard and damp beneath my back, at peace; my ears and mind filled with boom and roar and rush and grate, eternal sound, unhurried pace of everlasting ocean, as its waves gather their brown relentless selves to crash upon the shoreline, white flurries marking their landing place. In that hypnotic space I wander back and forth in thought, that from the sea we came and that the sea will still remain, when, maybe our human race no longer walks the shores and no longer looks in awe at the ocean’s incomprehensible face. Jan Armstrong Photo by Mia Nicoll via Unsplash

April sunshine, river-watching: mud-mounds glisten, softness surrendering to shallow water’s imperceptible infiltration within the shifting world of tidal exchanges. Water slips, silent, deepening, bubbles rise from submerging places as if small creatures were emerging - mud and air in intimate conversation. Water seeps, creeps over lunar landscapes, silently leaks, sneaks under wooden jetties, a mud-bound world of weedy edges, ropes and fences. Dinghies up-turned old boats tethered in this liminal land, paint peeling, halyards tapping, tarpaulins flapping, dirty hulls ripple-patterned. Boats will float when waters rise, but when the vagaries of temperature and tide swell the river and take the land, the river will have the upper hand. Our ownership and human plans, the little boats upon the grassy strand, the places where we live and love and hope, will pass into history, become photographs of the past. The wheel is turning. As the neutral fingers of the river find their way through ...

I have always been proud of my body: lithe, supple, quite elastic. Watch me while I bow to reach my delicately painted toenails. I have always been supple. My sturdy trunk withstands the wind which gently stirs my slender limbs and sets me swaying, tossed like the ocean’s waves, rippling the fronds of my lime-green hair. Don’t waste your pity on me. I have a reputation for weeping but I am content with my lot. I am not one of those weepy women you love to despise. Snivelling, you call it. I have always been flexible. Don’t let that thought mislead you into imagining that I am easily led. Supple, flexible, I may be. Pliable, I am not. If you are inclined to stay, we may indulge ourselves in a little laziness. Rest a while beneath my boughs, see how I catch the sunlight in my hair and we will dip our toes together in the river’s flow. I am a little moody, a touch melancholy you might say, and inclined to droop. There are times, I admit, when the river flows by unheeding and I crave a li...

after Laurie Lee, ‘Milkmaid’ ‘Tender cress and cuckoo-flower: And curly-haired, fair-headed maids, Sweet was the sound of their singing’* A pretty name, the ‘cuckoo flower’, just one of many guises: ‘Our Lady’s smock’, or ‘fairy flowers’ that come in varied sizes. The flower, they said, could bring bad luck so rarely picked for remedies; but sometimes risked to use like cress to pepper up the lunchtime cheese. The ‘May flower’ tells us when it blooms while ‘coco plants’ confuse the mind, the rustic ‘milkmaid’ seems to show an image that is less refined. The name suggests a dainty wench, just like the flower, a pleasant sight, who tends the herd in shaded barn in frilly smock, all dazzling white. They say the blooming coincides with cuckoo’s call; they may be right but milkmaids conjure up the mood of summer’s idyll at its height. Lee’s marigolds and buttercups and ‘brimming harvest of their day’ reveal to us a bygone time, remind us of those country ways. Julia Duke *From a 15th or 16...

That special summer evening. Whispering Saharan breeze on Suffolk shores. Warmth gently caressing, sensually embracing. Soft silken touch. Tomorrow is Monday. Today is paradise. Let this last forever. Shall we stay? A B&B? Reluctantly, we turn and leave this strangely tropical coast tonight. Bliss has to end. As did our love. That rare heated air will return, and I will cherish its soft warmth. But will intimate love? A warm embrace, a soft caress. Sharing a special summer evening. by Adrian.