“Glade” – another excerpt

So, considering I haven’t posted much in the last few months, I have decided to post another brief excerpt from “Glade” (brief being the key word here).

This glittering shard of text is part of the poem that presents itself to reader, all draped in leaves and whatnot, around the beginning of the story.

ANOTHER HEALTH ADVISORY: I can still confirm with some confidence that it would be detrimental for your health if I were to discover that you had coerced the above text into going someplace it shouldn’t.

It is, as I say, a brief fragment of text taken from a longer passage, but one that I often feel drawn to time and again before I resume work on Glade. For me at least, it is one of those fragments that I can dwell upon over a glass of whisky during the evenings (you may, of course, do the same with a beverage of your choosing).

Although this appears at the beginning it was written at the end (or near to it). It all came about one rainy morning when the mists had gently strolled down from their mountain eyries to swallow up the fields and trees below. I sat, watching their steady progress, until I too found myself ensnared by their ethereal embrace. The gentle tappings of the mist against my window bid me to let them in. It was with hesitant fingers that I reached for the latch.

If it had not been for the urgent protestations of my cat, I may very well have let them in. Fortunately, her insistence brought me to my senses and I pulled my hand away in haste. The mists seemed to sigh with disappointment now that their game had been undone; undeterred they moved on to other windows within the little hamlet where I dwell, attracted no doubt by the soft glow of life from within.

With my mind still hovering between what was real and what once was, I picked up my cat and gazed out of the window at the heaving shapes that were once hills and mountains. There, in the rain turned drizzle, stood an almond tree; distant and forlorn. It waved to me and I waved back (the cat flicked her tail, although I remain uncertain as to its meaning, if any). The tree swayed to a gentle song carried on the wind; silent to my ears behind the pane of glass.

It was at that moment that a thought occurred to me. It announced itself quietly and politely as it entered the room, motioning with its peculiar shaped head that I should perhaps pick up my pen and write the details down. This I did (after depositing the cat upon its sacred Chair of Monday Mornings and Occasional Afternoons) and the resulting poem came to be. In gratitude, I offered the thought a cup of tea and a biscuit. To this it politely declined, stating that it was on business of import that could not be delayed further.

With a polite nod of the head and a handshake we bid each other farewell, although I knew that we would meet again before long…