A Lovely Dawn
The sun was streaking the dawn sky pink and mauve, with the perfect light catching the dew on the ears of whiskered barley. With a pair of watching eyes, I marvelled at the majestic flight and mesmeric sound of the seagulls as they rose into the sun, clipping the misty air. As Maverick and I ambled along the narrow lane, I began to reflect on how I had enjoyed the ariel display of the swifts screaming eagerly for the sunset and their mystical star games when we last visited this place. Sadly however, they will soon be departing in a mysterious and wonderful way, in the sweetest season of the year.
As we continued our journey, a very self-effacing and quietly spoken lady approached with her dog. She leaned forward ruffling Mavericks curls, greeting him fondly. “Nice to see you again,” she purred, with a tinge of blush upon her face, and her soft brown eyes glinting over her smile, it was like the sun coming out from behind a cloud. I hugged her cautiously, taking care not to crush her embryonic child. “I believe congratulations are in order.” She was so intrigued as to how I knew. “How quickly rumours spread once the first whisper is uttered, I replied, and how swiftly your life will pass you by, but don’t forget to catch every precious moment along the way.”
Having parted company, Maverick and I made our way to the meadow where we came across an elderly man resting on a bench. I hadn’t seen him before. He had an oval face with strongly marked features, his dark blue eyes were fixed and steady. Close by, a fluffle of baby rabbits were feeding and frolicking and although he sprinkled into my speech he missed the moment. Some people are as happy as they make up their minds to be, shutting down their sense of wonder. With the pull of habit, we left as he murmured and huffed in tones scarcely audible. We entered the woods and settled awhile, a place I often frequented, for half of me was filled with bursting words, the other half craved solitude and wanted to nurture my self-care, to go gently, to sit and contemplate ‘till the warm gift of the late summer sun had faded away.
In the green and mossy bower, the woodland floor conditions were calmer amongst the cushions of velvet moss, where the light filtered through the upper foliage making the spiders’ webs shimmer, and by the water’s edge the wind stirred the diaphanous drapery of the weeping willow, where I spotted the merry eyes of a water vole. He then entered the water and swam almost hidden except for his nose, which pushed a ream on the surface like an arrowhead, but the blissful vision he evoked expired in a flash. Hurrying along life’s thoroughfare, many people are unaware of these endangered and diminishing creatures and sadly pass them by.
Lifting through the broken clouds, a searching beam of golden light settled on Maverick as he stretched out as tall and as proud as the first hour of the sun. As the curtains of his eyes lifted and the image entered, he saw a grey squirrel fossicking in the leaf litter burying cob nuts to store away for the coming winter. I love the unfettered, natural and honest beauty of this place which had taken the scene from memorable to magic. How wonderful the evocative power of nature.
With notebook in hand, I scribed my anxious marginalia to record my searches for meaning through the lens of wonder. Documenting over countless hours, covering many decades, observing wildlife through the rhythm of the seasons, has attested to a richer and deeper insight into the wonders that surround us. My episodic memory has morphed my journaling into my memoirs and enriched my life beyond belief.
