Yesterday I walked. I stepped on the remnants of Summer and filled my lungs with the clearest air. I saw colours with clarity. I felt the stagnation leave my soul. It’s in falling apart that we begin to rebuild, not just lives, but from a much deeper level.  

I’m no longer under the illusion that  my contentment lies in the hands of others. Ultimately people do as they please regardless, like the consequences of our actions don’t matter. Change isn’t hard, change is about how much you really want it. 

I watched the gulls swoop and dive, a frenzied harvest on the darkest soil. Grey skies like soft focus on the land. This immeasurable view could fill page after page with wonder. How these slopes entice and embrace, I like the unmapped path, where footprints rather than dictation lead the way. 

Colours staggered like a watercolour left out in the mist, but no less a masterpiece with imperfections intact. My eyes undemanding feast on this, like a silent gift it clings to my mind its grace unfolds with patience. 

I breathe deeply that I might exhale the city from my lungs, but to unleash such a plague in this serenity would puncture my soul, what’s mine remains so. Smoke rises from beyond the hedgerow the charcoal maker’s office. 

Dusk falls quickly now, this clock that we live by for reasons unknown. 

The last leaves fall, heavy with droplets from the morning rain. Too damp now to ever be skeletal.  The blackbird will find nourishment in their shadows. 
To leave things as we found them, this impossible task. Half open doors  where invitations once warm no longer stand. Thresholds crossed and farewells unspoken. 

This transcends chemistry, it overlooks the peripheral view. A new light is cast where nothing hides in the shadows. 
So this is where I exit. Listen to the absolute bones of this. As you were, undisturbed, taciturn and constantly searching. 

A pile of letters from a time gone by. From my father’s pen to my mother’s eyes. They smell like books from a favourite shelf, tattered in places not unlike myself. 

The ribbon that gathers them tightly is blue, stained with history’s adornments all of them true. 

I’ll never be closer than where I am now, to this wonderful gift I am tethered somehow. I can see where the ink flowed a little too fast, but time is reflected in all that has passed. 

I know every word on every page, the tear stained blots, the passion, the rage. My fathers pen, my mothers eyes, both still now, but still so alive. 

I am sentient. I eat I sleep I shit. I graze on this land. I am beaten, I am milked, cut and hanged on your orders, by your hands. That’s the irrelevance of who I am. 

What’s the difference between you and me? From where I stand it has nothing to do with intelligence. Admittedly where I stand is encased with a stench of every horror you inflict. 

If I could scream I would be heard on every corner of this planet, if I could fight you’d be crushed underfoot, but I possess neither ability. So I await my fate here at your side with your god given rights. 

If I could  offer you a glass of every chemical you inject, would you drink what you eat on my behalf? This cold chalice of medium rare that spills on every prison I’ve seen.

Meat? It’s what you’re made of. 

Rain runs through the gutters of our concrete existence. Giver of life filling potholes as our fume spewing rages on. Reflective puddles of light mirror skylines of how far we’ve come. How wonderful we are.

A short journey and the rain still falls, droplets cling to foliage like tiny explosions of sustenance. We thrive here, because of here. If there is a map of how to just be, it’s this. Nature invites us, but how rarely we attend with respectful actions.

I don’t understand humanity. If I could be excused I’d close the door to this unsustainable landscape. I’m forced to remain in this machine because “living the dream” is just a phrase invented by society to keep us prisoner. Fact is, we don’t all fit into concrete enclosures. Suburbia is the dream we’ve come to crave, but my nightmares are created there.

I lay silently beneath the boughs  looking up at the arteries that filter the sky. It puts perspective on everything. We assume too much and we discover so little in our clumsy lives. 

We want, we always want. We possibly die wanting In our ignorance. Perfection is dictated and we chase what we’re told. All we gain is someone else’s vision, but only because we want to. 

“What makes you happy?” 

The sky at dusk as the birds fly north. The sound of the wind in the highest branches. The roots of the oak underfoot. There’s no ladder I could climb, to match what I hold dear. No rocket built nor planet discovered that surpasses nature’s ability to capture my gaze. 

Peace isn’t a declaration, it isn’t  silence. It’s something that changes your soul. 

I am not daunted by the stop and start, the disappearing footsteps or this seamless heart. The teardrops glow in the moonlight like a blanket of stars, but I am not daunted by these scars. 

I’ll bend like the saplings in the storm force gale. I’ll wrap around your indecisions assuming crash position in preparation to fail. I am not daunted….at all.

This is not impulse, this is ingrained, I emptied my soul, but you still remained. I am not daunted by what holds me here , of the mist laden path I’ve always been clear. This world no longer daunts me….

I am not courageous and this is not war. Things born of beauty have settled that score. Every battle I face I face alone and I am undaunted through it all.  

I took a leaf and pressed it between pages of words I’d written for you. It kept its colours throughout every season, but it never grew brittle under that weight. There were times that my heart would shine in reflection of what had passed. And the leaf still glows, like affirmation,  a mirror of my heart. 

Life is passing, it’s path is ours and I  have no urge to move mountains or even scale their heights. I’ll tread gently and heal any scars I’ve inflicted. What can’t be healed will fade in time, like a leaf pressed in a book of words and the colours of my heart

Never before have I stepped into a season with such hopeful anticipation. I’ve not felt this way, any explanation is me just stumbling as I try to make sense of what this feeling really is.
I’ve always dreaded the shorter days  always seen it as a forced inprisonment. Where we huddle in front of a flickering box of false light and repetitive stories. This feels so different. Like what lies ahead of me is the answer to that dread. 
Just recently I’ve dived into nature. I’ve become besotted by its ability to ease my soul. Be it the bark of a tree or birdsong. It’s affected me deeply. If I can have this little piece of sanity , this one thing so capable of filling my mind and heart with hope, I am thankful. 

Even now, I sit in complete awe, simplicity was born here and it thrives without greed nor spite. I’m not a searcher, I don’t need a performance or a performer come to that. I don’t need much of anything. I want to protect this, to sleep in its shadows and gaze into the night. 

Nature constantly gives, humanity tightens its grip and wonders why our surroundings are dying. Safe behind four walls until the wind blows at the barricades. What use are bricks and mortar when the landscapes we build on are barren through ignorance. 

We own nothing but our insignificance.