Fen

Photo credit: Paul Middleton

One New Year’s Day, in deep frost, teasels shining in the watery light of early morning, I scrunched my way along the bank, revelling in the crispness of the air, the sunlight filtering through the rising mist.

I peered ahead for the familiar bend in the watercourse, old friend yet always deep-fen-shy of prying eye, flanked by triple-modelled banking of early drainers, holding back the inland waters from flowing over hard-won fields, once quaking, now barely yielding a ripple to answer passing trains unless I venture to the birch covered bog land beyond.

What is it about this autumn-hue reed bed, new-turned peat and beet-green mosaic that holds me?

What draws me back once more to ponder on the glories of winter sport, fishing riches and summer regattas played out in times past across the distant mere, now echoed only in flax crop’s spring-blue haze and seed-resurrected dyke-side flowering?

Can I really enter that world, or imagine what it really meant to all those generations of mere-side dwellers, exercising common right, defying abbey rules and landlord ‘right’?

Perhaps not, but the atmosphere this landscape leaks in this deep-cold winter hour, makes me call out again, ‘I love you’, and I know in this moment I will always return to listen to its whispers.

Paul Middleton

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

For World Earth Day...

Image
  For World Earth Day Thursday 22 nd April 2021   The Earth Rights Act in Perpetuity Inspired by the Human Rights Act 1998   As a woman I have fundamental rights and freedoms which not only impact on my   life and death, they affect my everyday life: what I say and do, and my beliefs.   I believe that the earth belongs to me; that we belong to the earth.     We are the people of the earth.   We are the earth.   It is my duty to protect, preserve and to save from harm the living earth upon which I thrive. Here find an Act of Earth Rights given in Perpetuity.     The earth has the right to: the right to a nature-cycle freedom from torture and degrading treatment freedom from husbandry through slavery and forced labour the right to live free in the known universe the right to an eco-voice the right not to be punished for something for which it was not responsible the right to respect freedom of reflection, et
Read more

Getting Into a Scrape

Image
  Photo credit: Yuri Fadeev I’m six or seven, climbing trees in my garden with my best friend. We’re spoilt for choice, with apple trees, plum, cooking apple, and pear. The tied cottage that comes with my father’s farming job is nothing short of idyllic and belies the material poverty we live in. We are not nature poor, but I’m often reminded that money doesn’t grow on trees. It’s a hot day; we both wear shorts and t-shirts. The difficulty of rating each tree is varied and each of us has differing climbing capabilities. I am the youngest of three, and when I’m with my elder siblings I can only lay claim to climb the cooking apple tree. Why? According to them, they are more adept than me. Plus, with its low, wide branches, in some places it’s even easier to climb than a ladder . I’m not allowed to attempt their trees. The pear trees require much more skill, with the first branches at head height. This requires grasping a branch with both hands, followed by some fancy leg swinging
Read more

The Comfortable Silence

Image
Klemen Vrankar 'Tell me about your childhood.' they say. They will be disappointed, they always are, as there isn't much to tell. My childhood is a jumble of brief snippets of memory, tricks of the light, illusions of the mind. I try to remember more to please them, but all that remains is a patchwork of pain.    My father towers over me his arm raised 'Well what have you got to say for yourself?' Nothing, I can say nothing, words evade me as I am terrified into silence. One day I will tell him exactly what I think, but not yet, I am still too young to vocalise my thoughts effectively.   In the bath, I submerge myself beneath the water and feel the peace of the tepid silence that surrounds me, a different feeling to the silence commanded by my father. 'Children should be seen and not heard', one of his many doctrines that enforce my need to scream and shout in protest at the unfairness of the world. 'She could be so pretty if she stopped scowli
Read more