Tag Archives: nature

Rainbow

Leave a reply

This morning my guide dog Trigger and I got soaked. Thor swung his mighty hammer and hailstones bounced off us. Nature, as is often her wont has exhibited her sense of humour, hailstones have been replaced by Apollo’s bright rays. Possessing only limited vision I don’t know whether a beautiful rainbow now brightens the sky tempting me to follow to it’s end and obtain the pot of gold which, lies buried in a wood where birds sing and the winter sun slants down through the branches casting shadows of light and shade on the forest floor. Shall  I follow the rainbow, undertake the quest without end for rainbows have no beginning and no ending. Like our dreams they call us ever onwards to explore the mystery which is life.

Barking

Leave a reply

Standing in my kitchen, peeling an orange, I was arrested in my progress by a sound cold, short and sharp –  The barking of one of the many foxes who make their homes in and around Crystal Palace. “Bark” the sound sent a shiver down my spine. Once again, “bark”, what are you about my friend? Do you hunt for food or call to your brethren? My dog lies seemingly unperturbed in his bed. He is your distant cousin but on this evening acknowledges you not. Sometimes he stands, nose pressed against the window, intent on you, his distant relative in the garden far below, but tonight he communes not with you. Fox, dog, so close and yet so far removed. Creature of domesticity, something wild lurks within. Sometimes you give short, sharp barks like your relation yet, if your paths chanced to cross you would give chase. You are, my dog, mine but not wholly so. You are part of the domestic hearth but yet have a paw in the wilderness. When you dream you are, I think closer to the wild fox calling at my window than you are to puny man.

The barking has ceased but the sound of death lingers on.

Waiting for the Storm

Leave a reply

Sitting here waiting. The sound of distant traffic interspersed with fireworks. London waits but for what? A storm which will uproot mighty oaks which have stood unmolested for centuries surviving all that the elements have thrown at them. Public transport in chaos, not leaves but whole trees on the line. Confused commuters milling around in search of that most elusive of objects – a train! Wind buffeting pedestrians. Street signs sway precariously. An overturned rubbish bin rolls merrily down hill.

Or perhaps it will pass London by. Perhaps. London waits, holds it’s breath waiting for the storm.

King Ludd

Leave a reply

Oh for the days of your when I could be found sitting reading with nothing but the ticking of a mantle clock to keep me company. No e-mail, internet or mobile telephone to distract me. Oh blissful memories of sitting on a wooden bench in a pleasant garden with nought but the singing of the birds as my companions.

Oh the irony of waxing lyrical about the joys of days gone by on a laptop!

Technology has it’s place. I well remember failing to meet my friend Brian in the days prior to either of us owning a mobile. Both of us waited in London’s Victoria mainline station but in entirely different parts of that huge concourse. You can guess the rest, we failed to make contact and returned home frustrated to put it mildly! Today such mishaps are much easier to avoid as short of forgetting one’s mobile or the battery failing one can call or text to ascertain where your friend is.

The internet has opened up the world and is, on the whole a force for good. Authoritarian regimes find it increasingly difficult to prevent their populations from knowing what is going on in the wider world. Even in North Korea where access to the internet is prohibited accept for a privileged few in the higher reaches of the regime, some ordinary North Koreans manage to get online with the assistance of iPhones, which is to be welcomed.

However I still feel a sense of nostalgia for those simpler times when the internet had not yet been born and landlines ruled supreme. The constant exposure to extraneous noise (the pinging of e-mail, the beep of yet another text arriving) will unless we take great care destroy something incredibly precious – the ability to completely switch off and lose oneself in the company of friends, nature or a good book. .

I don’t have a magic bullet to square this vicious circle. However when I see children playing sports rather than glued to their mobile devices I do glimpse a ray of hope. Listen to the birds, go for a walk and if you possibly can leave your phone at home or at the very least turn it off.

For my author’s page please visit http://www.amazon.co.uk/K.-Morris/e/B00CEECWHY/ref=ntt_dp_epwbk_0

Shades Of The Prison House Begin To Close Around The Growing Boy

Leave a reply

Walking in the park something smooth and round under my feet. I long to explore like the small boy I once was, to bend down and pick it up. What will people think, A strange middle-aged man bending over in a park full of autumn? The child thirsting for discovery contends with the staid adult who stands on ceremony. The child wins. I bend retrieving the smooth round conker. No not quite smooth but beautiful in it’s imperfection, soft in my hands. Should I take it home to harden in the dark like the small boy I once was?

Thoughts of my grandfather. Walking in the woods full of autumn. Us two together gathering nature’s fallen fruit. Opening acorns my blind hands feeling the kernel inside. Part of something I didn’t then understand.

The conker slips from my hands. I bend trying to retrieve the fallen prize. So many conkers, impossible to know which one it is.

I return home and play rough and tumble with my dog. His tail wags furiously no sad thoughts fill his head.

London Fox

Leave a reply

I lie my mind attempting to focus after deep slumber. A sound cold and sharp reaches me. The bark of a fox hunting or calling to it’s mate. The quilt has fallen. The cold sound of the fox mingles with my coldness. I shiver pulling the cover over me. Bark, bark the noise fills the early morning.

3.30ish. I need to drink. Entering my living room, on the way to the kitchen I pass my domesticated fox. No not a fox but my dog seemingly unaware of his cousin outside. He lies sleeping separated by the thin veil of domesticity from his wild relation.

The sound has ceased. I fall asleep and dream confusedly of dogs and wolves.

Ramblings

2 Replies

Something intangible is passing, perhaps it is long since gone. Walking among these trees, I feel sadness carried on the breeze. Something  great and profound has vanished, forever lost in the mists of time. Soon the leaves will fall to the ground, rich golden brown. Something is gone, impossible to express or define, that which is destroyed by time.

I can not express what I want to say, words fly erratically away. Trees representing permanence stand but something is lost, I only dimly understand.

The Sea

Leave a reply

The sound of the surf, swish, swish as the great waves come and go fills my head. The tide sweeps all before it, the great waves flattening sand castles and all our human works. At first the moat fills with water but the castle still stands grand and tall against the tide’s mighty roar. Slowly walls subside the whole being taken back by the great ocean, returning to whence it came.

Standing on the cliff edge the roar fills my ears. The hypnotic sound of waves breaking and receeding is all that can be heard. The world is drowning being taken back by the great atlantic. All will eventually pass but not quite yet for slowly the tide receeds but tomorrow he will return in all his mighty glory and anger reminding us that we are mere men. Time and tide wait for no man, both keep rolling, humans attempt to run and hide but, eventually all will be brought low like the puny sand castles we built as children.

Slowly I replace the conch shell on the shelf in my living room. The sound of the clock reasserts itself and distant twittering of birds is heard.

The Great Cycle

1 Reply

Walking in the woods after rain. Damp grass caressing my naked feet, the scents of nature heady and pervasive.

Losing myself in the dark mystery, moving ever closer towards that which can not be expressed.

Time appears to stand motionless. That old gnarled log on which I have so often rested stretches it’s bulk across the leaf strewn path. Once part of something living it now acts as a convenient bench while, imperceptibly it decays returning to what it once was, rich earth which will give rise to new life.

Long before me these trees have stood. I will go and they will remain. I am part of something beyond myself, a living organism in nature’s mysterious plan. Yet I deny this on occasions. Hiding behind my computer’s screen or my head full of noise ear glued to my mobile. All seems paltry as I walk here. The technology with which man surrounds himself is a silly toy. Nature laughs at us. She waits, Man will go but she will remain.