White Winter Hymnal

Is he back? Who knows? It’s been a long (and eventful) absence. I may be speaking to dead air by now. Every now and then I’ve dropped in to see how you are all getting on but the urge to write anything creative has been.. absent. And so the blog has languished and probably been forgotten, it might be for the best. Do I have anything left to say? Did I ever have anything to say?

That’s not for me to judge.

Frankly, I’m working too damned hard these days in truly menial labour to care all that much.

One piece of news may be of interest to some of you, we’re leaving Jersey. Yes, our time here has come to an end. As of the very near future, we’ll be calling Lancaster PA home. I’m excited by the prospect. Lancaster UK is actually where my family originates on my grandmother’s side and there are many symbolic connections to be found in this very pretty city in the heart of Amish country.

Perhaps the move will inspire some posts.

In the meantime, here’s a piece I wrote standing on a train platform after a night spent unloading a truck full of Christmas crap.

 

 

Cold early morning in Bridgewater

 

Down the tracks, under the overpass

A doe crosses

Proud silhouette in the backlit white cloud

Of her steaming breath

Ephemeral

All unaware

As the train from New York

Appears silently in the distance

Made insubstantial

By the haze of morning’s mist

The deer declines to shift from the trackside

Nosing her way through the glistening weeds

I wait for the blast from the driver’s horn

But the train bears down with mesmeric rhythms

More seductive than startling

The deer if she has noticed

Remains unharried

Unhurried

Then, as anticipation hangs in the chill

That horn blares

And the deer

Leaps

Bounding

Bounded by grace

 

The train speaks its language of power

The deer remains eloquently silent

I stand in awe

Of the unrepeatable moment.

 

Words and image are my own.

©2019