WRITING INSPIRED BY LANDSCAPE

    Stools and rooms The internet miracle of Sitting and talking In remote rooms across zoom Is nothing To the ancient rejuvenating funghi net Which vitally feeds, protects And connects the giant and the microscopic. Preceding human cleverness and showing us up. Big time. Sarah Tickle

  God peered over their glasses. ‘Can I have a word please?’ Francis had known there would be repercussions. He swallowed the rising feeling of trepidation. But hadn't God delegated his authority – left the entire matter in Francis hands? It was all very well observing things from afar in Paradise. It was also all very well having 800 years of experience and the title of Patron Saint of Ecology and Animals but that didn't prepare anyone for a visit to Earth.   Glasgow 2021 to be precise.   Taking on the climate crisis that could end the world   - with a bunch of overworked, tired world leaders reeling from the shock of COVID, hosted in the country that voted for BREXIT to boot ( although Scots might disagree). God just hadn't realised the enormity of the task they'd assigned to him. Francis tightened the rope around his waist and hitched up his habit - mentally preparing himself   for God 's disappointment and the inevitable dressing down. He silent...

  Article from The Patron Saint Herald – 14 th October 2021   Crisis Talks at Earth Division of Patron Saints by Francis de Sales Photograph: Veronica   Today a crucial meeting was held above Rome to discuss the looming threat of a global environmental catastrophe on Earth, which could lead to the closure of the Earth Division of the Patron Saints Organisation.   Raphael the Archangel chaired the meeting to appoint the patron saint responsible for COP Summits.   The successful candidate will intercede with God on behalf of the COP Summit attendees. It is thought by many that whoever wins this prestigious post will be in a solid position to become Head of the Division, assuming they are successful in securing agreements with God that do save the planet.  Following the initial ballots, four very different patron saints made it through to the shortlist. Tipped as the favourites are Frances of Assisi and Kateri Tekakwitha who both hold ecolog...

  The first wet diamond drops to the ground. A light breeze shakes the branch and a whole shower of diamonds falls onto the leaf-laden soil, mulched and mellow. Sparkling rivulets momentarily form before seeping into the city below. Absorbed, the diamonds penetrate the damp dirt, soaking downwards towards minuscule towers and turrets. Castles and cathedrals of fungal eminence are connected by microscopic bridges and filamented walkways which span the miniature city. Darkness is no barrier, neither is humidity, and so the concealed structures curve and stretch around the scaffolding of roots above them. With the passing of time, the sparkling wetness dulls to mud, evaporates, condenses and falls again as wet diamonds in another place.  Janet Curtis Image: Matthew Schwartz from Unsplash Photo by Mathew Schwartz on Unsplash

  The Platypus made her solitary and ponderous way through the universe laying her round eggs. She had no mate, although maybe there had once been one. Perhaps he was seeking her still as she wrote the story of their family that never was in the inky darkness of space and time. There were countless eggs, no eyes to see them except those of their mother, and she never once turned her head to look. All the Old Ones awoke to find the visible universe full of spheres. They had fallen asleep in an immense open space which was now either pleasantly or unpleasantly cluttered, depending on their point of view. Green had stirred first. It always did. Not that it knew it was predominately Green until it observed a new species, which it had partly created, evolve language and name colours. Green enjoyed sleeping less than the other Old Ones. Consciousness gifted time to observe, taste, listen, touch, absorb, and generally accumulate knowledge, all of which it kept silent about. Once Green...

  What next? Ah yes, the water. I am very wary of watering after the tomato fiasco, but I reason that all things need water to grow. The school hymn runs through my head.  'We plough the fields and scatter The good seed on the land, But it is fed and watered By God's almighty hand;' Damn, now it will be on loop in my head for the next few hours. It wouldn't be so bad if I could remember any other lines. So should I wait for the miraculous watering to take place? As we are currently in the middle of a prolonged dry spell possibly not.   I check the packet for watering instructions. There are none. I turn to trusty Google again and type in 'How to Water Carrot Seeds'. In dismay I read the answer; ' Water  deeply prior to planting.  Water  the area with the gentlest stream you can provide, and keep it constantly moist until the  seeds  sprout.'   Water prior to planting! Have I just wasted the last two hours? A plan I need a...

‘ Why are you hanging on so long? ’ ‘ I can’t bear the idea of falling. Falling is the end of me. ’ ‘ You’ve been hanging there for weeks now all on your own. ’ ‘ The others all left. One by one. I watched them give up. And fall. ’ ‘ Aren’t you lonely? ’ ‘ Sometimes... then again you learn to embrace the isolation and the emptiness. And the silence of the missing. The ones who’ve left. ’ ‘ But you hung on. ’   ‘ Waiting until I can do so no longer. Till the strength and stubborn-ness is gone and the mind begins to fade. Waiting. In the long moments of waiting just soaking up the sun, tracking it’s fading heat as it moves behind the cloudy skies, letting the rain and the morning mist soak my skin, drenching my soul in wet. Yet, somehow, I always thirst for more. The dry always returns too soon. ’ ‘ The ground is wet. Most of the day now. ’ ‘ Yes, but that’s different. A sinking, invading wet that punctures the skin, bruises and flushes my flesh to pulp. ’ ...

    I stare down at the packet in my hands, turning it over and over. 'I'm not sure I want to eat purple carrots' I say to the man on the other end of the phone. 'Sorry love it's all we have left. Your list said carrots, so we sent you what we had. It's Lockdown, and everyone has become an amateur market gardener' he replies with a laugh in his voice. 'But do they taste purple?' He sighs. 'How does purple taste?' 'Like blueberries or blackberries. Berrylike.' 'No, they taste like carrots, delicious carrots. They're a heritage variety.' 'What about the red ones?' 'Carrots. They taste like carrots.' 'And the yellow ones.' 'Look love they're carrots. They all taste like carrots. If you don't want them, you can bring them back.' 'I can't; I'm self-isolating.' I can hear him moving around as he is talking to me. 'Well, you can bring them b...

  My most beloved bird, winter in your wings. Storm-driven feathers, ice-gleaming eyes. There is no summer softness in your plumage, Just the barred echo of your nest site pylon.   Scything through clouds discoloured with rain,  Black, slate-blue, the darkness flies. Your beauty calls me with wails on the wind, Ascending high, circling, dissolving in haze.    Nothing temperate in your searing flight, You, a hooded outlaw blazing with intent. Brutal bone-chilling frost in your glacial stare, Wings crisply held, scalpels slicing the air.   Your prey scatter like chaff you have winnowed, A blizzard of panic under your gaze. Slashing rain in your stoop, lance legs extended, Their last sight on earth is your glittering glare. Barbara Grafton  Image copyright Barbara Grafton

The girl was walking the boundary hedgerow, her hands wrapped in the rough cloth of her skirt for warmth and to raise it clear of the mud and leaf litter. Her copper hair, tied at the nape, fell down her back like a fox’s brush and glowed in the autumn morning sun. Occasionally, she stopped, seemed to be listening. The onlookers - her family, the yeoman and his family and workers - were silent, waiting. Crouching, she knew she had found the place. Here was such peace that calmed her, despite her grief. It was not present anywhere else she had walked in the fields. Turning, she gestured to the watchers, her arms spread wide in the shape of a cross.  Leaving the yeoman’s workers to dig the grave, the subdued group returned to the farm where the woman, just twenty-eight, lay shrouded in the bed of the cart. Hair washed, combed and tucked beneath a fresh coif, clothes neat, eyes shut, she held her new-born in her arms. Her seventh child had come too soon. Her husband had been dis...

  There is, for me, no landscape without memory.   Landscape renders the unreal real, a soul in death, intuition curled up in cool caverns, amorphous in pebble, stone, rock, tossed in river, stream, rapid, locked in ice above, below, flounces in flows of meltwater lapping ocean shores, earth’s spheres north, south, east, west, preserve hidden depths.   Landscape without memory is a future of weather-worn days roaming pre-destined routes ancient to modern, tossing skyward people, places.   My childhood landscape was an illusion, a non-place over which I had no right to roam. My home, a concrete bunker with lace curtains to hide the hurt within.   I ran stone pavements in my Cinderella shoes, stubbed my toe, scraped my cheek on gravelled ground barring my way to grassy footpaths out of danger.   No walk in the park my childhood landscape until I climbed the distant dream seen through the broken pane of...

  I don’t know that I’ve ever collected anything apart from memories. I used to keep photo/scrapbook journals until I couldn’t see the point of being the only reader. But is that collecting or hanging on to things? I think I struggle to know the difference. My family never instilled in me a sense of keeping things, we never had much to keep. I rather like the Maori outlook that nothing is forever and things have a life of their own. Passing objects onto others is extending their life and if things get lost it just means they are moving on to another new phase and you have let them do that. That thought is very useful when you lose something precious or valuable.   What little my parents did inherit was not really precious or valuable. My mother especially was always looking to throw things out. Including a huge fifteen year old rubber tree that if she’d advertised it probably could have made £40 or £50 quid but instead she took the scissors to it one night and filled thr...

  Photo by Nicolas Solerieu on Unsplash I stood by the pond in the woods. A silver circle of shimmering light that I visited often. All about me was constant change. Newt eggs sealed in their leafy pitta bread cocoons, each leaf carefully folded by the female newt to safeguard the ovum from desiccation and the attention of predators.   Over time the larvae develop until hatched but even then, the change process continues with feathery gills providing the thin but extensive surface area through which oxygen is absorbed from the surrounding water. Lungs develop and eventually the juvenile newt can leave the pond to breathe air direct, no longer a prisoner within its benign watery gaol. Many insects transform through the stages of egg, larva, pupa to adult. If only science can learn how to replicate the entire regeneration of organs and limbs, much human and animal suffering would be a thing of the past, but paradoxically more time money and effort are expended on finding ne...

  Photo by  FitNish Media  on  Unsplash After the disastrous no-deal Brexit of early 2021 that disrupted imports and caused an alarming spike in food costs, our Parish Council took emergency measures to improve local food security.   The village has always had a strong community spirit, so there were many willing hands to help transform every inch of available land into productive community organic gardens. A decade ago, the view from our house was of Parish Council-owned land, mostly laid to closely-mown grass but fringed with lime, birch, and apple trees. Two deep rows of mixed daffodils between the trees, a patch left unmown for bee orchids, and an out-of-control hedge of brambles completed the picture. It was peaceful, green but lacking in biodiversity, and little used. Today, I join other villagers to weed, tidy, and harvest the bounty from the community garden. From the start, we constructed a method of rainwater capture and distribution so that supple...

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...