Clocking On

In the slim gully marking the holdings of no man, between rivers Linnet and Lark, a line of beady reeds vibrate, oscillate in the trappings, where the first spring day breeze crosses the blades and so they shimmy, shadow hatched, counting time, knitting time with needle-fire, marking it with decisive tick-tocks. Some are shorn, others shaggy topped, bearskin wearing almost; all are skinny, akin to an extended family of lanky brothers and sisters who perform daily and bow to silent watchers. And hereabouts a female Kessie is flirting with the ensuing dusk, her limitless prowess governed by the radial arc of dog-walkers and ramblers footing out for the first long day, post-prandially, the clocks forward an hour offering extra walking and drinking time before lights out. The Kessie, she is hidden and bidden by the thin woodland that borders the oceanic A-road to the east, all huffy sighs and murmurs, a crashing tide of cargo-hauliers and mealy weekenders surfing for bargain PSP's and sofas (and wedding refits). The air is brittle with the new season, delicately running a borderline now in the late afternoon, as the Kessie flies clean and low over a furrowed field (the chunks of turned, exposed flint lined up like primeval dog skulls, ossified and shiny with weather wear) and she dallies round on the ground, picking at suggestions of food in the brown earth before rising again to observe the milling reeds from some sticky overhang. All fires the fire of spring; complimented by bells, vanquished only by night (and even then, really?). In the shadows, the suggested abbots and vagrants of another time are blinking, whispering adulations and wry jokes, their feet muddy and blistered with the winter's gone damage (trench foot before trenches); and their plainsong can be heard up the shared path toward the ivy and the spruces heavy laden with cones, where the tombs and the life markers are gently spilling over each other for space.

Bury St Edmunds