England is Windy, So the Clouds Are More Interesting

27 July, 2002, Walk 32- Arundel to Amberley. Present- Steve, Mike, Elisabeth, Keith, Neil, Jenny, Annette. Acknowledgements to Annette, whose comment on the train two weeks previously provided this title.

 

Now and now and now and now

Seen and breathed through the heart

Can always be more interesting

Than perhaps you thought.

 

‘The clouds in England are so interesting-

Because of all the wind’

Annette’s observation on a train

Made up for so much complaining

From Latin folk about our ever-changing weather

 

A shot occurs- inexplicable,

Echoing across the valley

Punctuates the start of our half-hour silence.

This is my England, your England

This tranquil moment

Overlooking the valley.

 

I’ve taken out a green foil-wrapped

Chocolate-covered mint

And my mind fills with anticipation.

 

Now it has been eaten.

Now the purple flowers

look brighter through these sunglasses.

(Someone in our party has deemed them ‘competitive’ sunglasses,

brought into being by Mercury in Leo.

Some say astrology is science

Some call it hogwash

But who cares?)

When you’re in a place of such breathtaking vastness

Where all concepts, beliefs

And agnosticism dissolve!

 

Today I hear music freshly in my mind

That was made 33 years ago

It’s as new to me

As these grasshoppers nearby.

 

Shadows of memory brush these hills

Cast by giant rolling clouds

 

What if that which we see outside- beyond thinking-

Is a huge mirror

Of the inner landscape?

 

Now a thought bubble comes

Then pops

A droning bee swoops back and forth

Another gunshot punctuates ’25 minutes passed.’

A jet plane trails off to the right

The sky above me turning a tender cobalt blue.

Love is ALWAYS the best response in every situation

(-Even to those among us

Who can’t seem to stop talking during the half-hour silent period!)

The hillside is alive

The sky is saying ‘We are glued so lightly together

The jokes at styles

The sarcastic scorpio rising and falling comments

The catching up and the falling behind

-All this we will look back on one day

As one more moment

One more squeeze

One more drop

Of the glorious glue.’