Neighbours

Our closest neighbour across the fields, a gorgeous old Sussex cottage. Our house is a similar style, only 30 years old but sits comfortably in its surroundings just the same. You can just see the start of the South Downs in the distance.

It's wild again today, third day of tidying the garden.

Third Day

On the third day the ashes were still warm.
I scooped out a hollow like the palm of a cupped hand.
Dry grass and wind brought rustlings of heat ... flames.
I brought cut herbs and the flames grew wild.
A great wind caught up my clothes and beat them
till they snapped around my legs,
and tears made dustless tracks down my cheeks.
A distant pheasant rasped,
the wind moaned all the way down the valley.
In the cave of ash like a cupped hand, hot charcoal
to feed the barbecue's hooded metal belly.

©sue2011