online: 27 sept 2002

26 september 2002 how to live


17:19 Early evening sunlight and slight breeze. Something gliding as low as the tree tops, a heron with motionless wings gliding almost horizontally, huge wings relative to it's body... and the trees looking as if they're postponing decay in this mild weather...

I sit again on the seat inscribed

in memory of Kate Lunn 1971-1997
to know how to live is all

And now I look about at decaying thistles and dead dock flowers, falling-over willows, circus caravans nowadays containing no lions, tigers, elephants, not even horses* - how has so traditional a form survived such a change? I suppose only a few have. This circus (Zippo's)was 'voted Britain's best' - perhaps it's not far from being the only one?

I feel I could sit here forever (while this western sunlight continues).

I'm looking now at a jumbo in the distance, flying slowly in the autumn sunshine as it approaches Heathrow. I find it difficult to imagine 400 people inside that apparently tiny object among the clouds - as difficult as imagining people on the moon. Technology at its most magical - and accepted like the sight of a bird, or a hand, or a leaf. But it's less magical, less spontaneous, than they.

I've moved on, passing a man in a woolly cap sitting on the ground with folded legs and closed eyes - is he meditating? He is sitting by some rushes that bring memories of Borth Bog or Cors Fochno where we camped, and later lived, in partial wildness.

The man who was sitting is now walking (with some poise) and he looks at me as he passes. I wonder if any of the people mentioned here will see what I've written about them?

It's 18:11 and the sun has moved behind the trees - so I'll move.



*later I saw that they still have horses and a circus man told me that they have bugerigars as well. Domestic animals are still allowed (by the local council). He thought that there might be twenty circuses in Britain and agreed that there were many more previously. He is not from a circus family, he chose to do it. I asked if he performed. 'Bits and pieces', he said, smiling.


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© 2002 john chris jones

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