Shoes

Start with a daffodil. Today's bunch, new, sitting in the terracotta jug from Provence I was given as a leaving present from the wholefood shop back in West London in the early '90s. This particular daffodil is newly seized by the impulse to open, has just swollen enough to push aside the brownish sheath that has protected it like a stocking mask. It is narrow, small still, but now begins to hint at yellow. Tomorrow or the next day all this will be forgotten, the final flourish of flower will become familiar for a few days, seeming stable in that incarnation, until the edges of the petals slowly begin to dry and curl, the colour to lose its initial vibrancy.

I use the daffodil like the ground beneath my feet, like the in and out of my breath, to try and bring myself back to the moment, to the page, or the compose box, the bright white of the screen. Here I am, here, tonight, a strange season that is neither spring nor summer as we usually understand them but a curious hybrid, hot sun on as yet unopened leaves  in the valley, daffodils on the verges, viewed through a rolled-down car window. Here, with Mingus's Shoes of the Fisherman's Wife playing, and a phone-call from one of L's sisters to say their mother is out of hospital, her blood sugar once again stabilised. And my mother earlier on the phone, not entirely remembering the content of a doctor's appointment whose details I already know from my sister's email, but remembering that she forgot to talk to the doctor about her memory. Laughing with me at that.

L at the pub with her bee group, preparing to join one of the teams of bee handlers, after her training over the last few weekends. L drinking beer, me a glass of white wine. How did this evening gesture creep back in? Warm as summer, I throw off the duvet in the night, but the forecast suggests wintry showers are possible next week in the far north, but doesn't say how far.

One of my poet friends has a new collection out, and I write the launch date in my diary, feeling that acid blend of pride and envy. Easy on the envy. I did have an idea for a poem two nights ago and it had to do with time and length. I wrote down a few words in the notebook beside my bed, given to me by L in my Christmas stocking, empty until then. Time and length. Length of time. The endlessness of separation.

I have not filled the tank of my car with petrol. I have no need to drive anywhere for some days. We were going away for the weekend, but L is recovering from a knee injury, so we stay at home. To me this sounds like music. Nowhere to get to, even a pleasant destination. Home, and peace, and the notebook.