It’s a little before 9pm as I turn my bike off of the single track road and head along a dusty graveled path. I switch the lights off the bike and leave it tucked in amongst the grassy verge near the field opening.
A few nights ago I drove by this spot at more or less a similar time and disturbed something in the road. How someone could mistake a hare for a rabbit I’m sure I will now never understand. Having not seen one before I must admit that the question did appear in me but even before the end of my thought process something knowing inside sat up as as tall and as straight as the hares ears ‘A hare!’ my spine said as it felt some wild recognition. As much as it did not want to be near the car nor did it appear to mind too much as it loped down the lane. Its tawny body and grey ridged spine carrying those great heavy feet, lifting them to reveal a densely furred white sole. As I cautiously followed he turned up a steep driveway and stood on the ridgeline of tarmac below a house. It felt odd to see such wildest of creatures so close to domesticity and I am sure the hare felt the same for after a brief moment it disappeared over the ridge, its’s ears now tight against its back. I have returned tonight on a warm evening perhaps I am hoping to see the hare once more but I dare not say it being the superstitious creature I am.
I sit beneath a telegraph pole, mid field where the tractor could not traverse in the hopes that the sweet dry grassy tufts below the pole will disguise me. Having past the midsummer point and with Lammas just behind the evenings are not as drawn out as before and darkness can quickly bleed into the land. For now though there is still light as clouds sweep in great lavender washed arcs revealing the soft pale peach underbelly of the days spirited summer sky. I know that there are single track roads all around but neither can I see nor hear them. Instead there are a handful of farms dotted in the valley, arable fields cushioned by pathways of over managed hedgerows and copses of oak, ash and birch.
I sit for a while scanning the margins with my binoculars but as always I give up with them far too quickly. Not because of impatience or boredom but from a deep aversion to being penned in. A feeling that is overspilling from my daily life into this moment of stillness, so strong is the movement within me. Tonight my eyes don’t want boundaries they want bounty, something only possible when my whole body is open to a place. I gift my eyes that which seems so impossible to gift to the rest of my life and I lay the binoculars down.
A fox emerges left from a far gate, tracking a neat course across the field, Large bodied and darkened by the summer. Her form appears like something bigger as so often happens at dusk to beast, tree and building. Or perhaps it is because she is the only thing bar the sharp stubble in this field. She carries something tight in her jaws, a dark round object too far away to make out. A doe rabbit or maybe even a partridge, I have seen them about these parts. Whatever it is it has given its last breath tonight to sate the foxes hunger.
As the dark reaches in so the farm roofs fade and the trees lose even their silhouettes becoming one with the landscape, until dawn breaks the land will remain but a ghost. From behind me in the hazel a robin lets go of a small syrup like sonnet, too soon for his autumn song and yet he must feel the coming change more keenly than our dulled human senses. The air touches my forehead and gently moves a wisp of my hair against my cheek, it’s not cold but the sensation chills my skin just enough to make me move. As I leave and head back towards my bike so too do the last crows who fly over to a nearby oak, joining the others who began to roost there whilst I was watching the fox. Their entrance disturbs the already resting birds who suddenly begin to crawk and all together come up to circle, a cauldron of crows demanding loudly that the night give them their rest before coming together to roost once more and all the land is but a summer whisper.
Your writing is always beautifully captivating. Your ability to paint a picture in words is truly a gift. I pray the right person sees your writing.
Wonderful, I'm not very good with words but I feel like I'm right there .