online: 9 september 2012
modified: 8, 9 september 2012

8 september 2012 after sleeping in warm air


beneath oak trees and cloudless sky

...after coming away from indoor concerns on a sunny day and ceasing to worry about anything as i sat and then lay on a bench for an hour or so... nearly sleeping... (i've not done that for months... perhaps years...) and while looking upwards at treetops from beneath...

...now sitting up and becoming active again as my thoughts become part of the scene before me... of mown grass and tree shadows... and people sitting in the shadows... while the younger and more active ones throw frisbees to each other in the sunshine...

...'Vera come back!' says the angry voice of a woman behind me... 'Come back... NOW!'... and Vera (if i heard her name correctly and who is a child on a pink bicycle) comes back to the woman... and the peace of the day in my thoughts is not ruined...

...as the shadows grow longer... and captive dogs keep close to or stray from their owners... and a man folds a blue sheet of plastic on which he was sitting or lying ... and now he has gone... as others have gone now it's teatime or cooler ... and a man and a woman are semi-wrestling and now embracing quite calmly and freely... and now they disengage and pay attention to another woman who is with them and stands while they sit on a rug or a cloth... which they then fold as the air cools... and five birds hop about in the distance... (where people were walking a few minutes before)...

...now the people have nearly all gone... and most of the grass is in shadow... and i even blow my nose and think of moving... but pause first to stay longer in this moment before deciding whether to continue walking from this randomly chosen point to the next one... or to return to eat now and not later... and then to let this text transfer (or sync) itself automatically to a laptop... and to edit while these events are still in my memory...


...20 mins later... arrived at highest seat just in time to see about 20 swallows or swifts flying in formation... are they getting ready to migrate...

...the air is completely still here now... and the distant city towers are in a faint mist.. .. a bird calls:
crrrk crrrk... crrrk crrrk...
can it possibly be a corncrake (for that's what it sounds like... i remember it from childhood... but thought it had since become extinct in the UK)

...now some people taking photographs ask me where are the best views of London from the heath... and i tell them of Kenwood and of Parliament Hill (best if you go a little below the summit to see past the bushes)...

...the sky is now slightly cloudy over the city towers which are reflecting the pink light of the sunset... while the sky above is purple pink with long streaks of blue grey... some natural... some vapour trails...

...and now a wind... the first breeze of the evening ... after warm stillness all day... and now i feel awake enough to travel back to my flat and cook supper and edit this...






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after nearly sleeping in warm air © 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012 john chris jones



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