S A D

It seemed to be February. I started to read poems about this month, where the bleakness was soldered onto the paper. And then I looked at my screen and saw it was the last day of January.  Still January.

 It’s anything but still, outside: once again the wind is thrashing the black yews; the bays sway and the stiff grey cherry will surely snap if it does not learn to flex.  Lead and slate: the garage roof, as I look down from this upstairs window, is indeed slate and its colour has leached into the rain-soaked limestone of the walls. The skeleton of a hawthorn scratches at the sky. On the horizon the sea exhibits a paler shade of lead, whipped into turbulence. Lead – Pb – reminiscent of plums somehow, or am I thinking plumb lines?  Lines of squalls are wind-dragged up the channel.  There are plums as dark as this winter but this day lacks their iridescence.

Beyond the garden wall: the only true colour the monochrome green of the fields, though there are hints of yellow where the vegetation has drowned and now rots. Yellow lilies and roses in a vase on the windowsill; even though they are dying, their colour is still so bright that it hurts my eye and I turn away.