online: 2 october 2011 modified: 1, 2, 9 october 2011 1 0ctober 2011 a warm day in autumn
at the tumulus
...in still air beneath wispy cloud... a blue-red haze at the horizon... dry end-of-summer grass on which sit scores of picnic parties (of 2 to about 20 people)... a few take photographs or kick a ball... but the majority just sit or lie and seem to say little... (is it too warm to think or to be energetic?)...
...now some are on their feet getting ready to leave and some are already walking away... slowly...
...the sky begins to darken... a jumbojet tears the air... while a few people in a nearby wood shout unexpectedly... as if they too were birds with calls and cries of some significance... but i suppose these shouts signal exuberance... not coded meaning...
...and now... before i go.... i clear my throat and look around this piece of world... and think of what is absent... or invisible...
...i look at the surrounding trees... when suddenly people in one picnic begin to shout or sing or scream... while others join in all over the meadow.... a collective initiative that i've never witnessed before... the calls then stop for a minute or two... and then a few try to repeat the shouting... but it seems less spontaneous... and spreads only to about half of all those present... whereas before everyone (except me?) seemed to be joining in...
...and now most the picnikers have gone... and those remaining seem to be talking more... (now that it's cooler?)... this sound of conversation and laughter pervades the meadow while the city lights switch on in the distance ...
...but what was i going to think or write of absent things... (or things missing from) this autumn evening on the heath?
...suddenly... in the dusk my visual perception presented (for less than a second) the image of a dog beside me... though when i looked directly i see it is a brown hole (dug perhaps by an animal)... but at first glance it looked like a dog*...
*as i edit this i remember seeing imaginary animals on the heath, or elsewhere... foxes, tigers, humans not only as illusions but as consciously imagined elements of attempted plays or fictions... since the 1970s
...and now i think (as often) of things i've wished to do but may not be able to complete... or even to begin...
...time to walk away before the night gets darker and obstacles become less visible...
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