Hear the Kingfisher

("Awkward Human Folly As sea mist fogs my window, I no l...)

"Awkward Human Folly As sea mist fogs my window, I no longer see the pair of swans lift up on webbed feet, shake out wings and beat the blues for sun’s return. I miss their long landings on orange pontoons, the swish of water parting, wake soft under their white chest as they settle into their favorite chair. All this white surprises me, as did the wind dying yesterday, when I watched a lone man with his ice boat slip and stumble across the bay, dragging dead sails behind him on his long ice walk, with no neck in a graceful S-curve, wings broken and his voice hissing low grunts. Old Furrows Last night, we dined on plump white asparagus served on cheerful china plates with a crevice for mayonnaise. (The chateau has been restored to a desideratum of elegance and culture by Madame & Monsieur Tormos.) As we tucked in, Madame Tormos said, “The garden was sown on top of ancient monks’ graves.” She tends the vegetables today with a care which harkens to old days of Saint George, before the sound of hob-nail boots marching into her hall, or smell of burning panel walls. Villagers blasted out from blood and barbed wire, changing bread-line crumbs into wheat fields, ploughing pain into the earth and seeding old furrows with poppies. Now the abbey’s red brick wall, topped with red tiles, seems a perfect buttress against any kind of perpetration. The wall, centuries older than any of us, withstood five hundred years of occupations. This year a Nazi helmet was dug up in the garden; it hangs on a hook in the stables. A yellowhammer perched on it and sang– behind him the church tower pitted with bullet holes. How perfect, this morning the passionflower, desideratum, on the wall beside the window. After All Will death be like crinoline oak leaves waltzing in a summer breeze, rumpled and airy? Will spirits float together in clumps or alone? When they meet, will they say to each other “Do you remember on earth when we…” Will we see God? You stamp your feet into the earth as you walk, as if to make sure the ground remains solid. I doubt if we will need toes or shoes where we are going. I feel sure we will have a great adventure. After all, there’ll be no need to go anywhere, we will have arrived and I’m thinking I may learn to sing. "

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