online: 10
august 2014
modified: 10 august 2014
31 july 2014
in a secret valley
...years ago we came here for blackberries... and this year there will
surely be a good crop... says he... thinking like a farmer...
...but now... thinking he hopes as a non-specialist... he looks at the
whole scene... and listens to the soundscape... and to his memory of
recent thoughts:
he hears an aircraft becoming quieter as it
moves out of earshot... and then he hears the sound of a pigeon flapping
its wings... just 3 or 4 flaps... and in the distance a child's voice...
calling perhaps to someone... but there is no reply...
...the
surrounding trees are still... darkness gathers beneath them... and the
movement of the air is imperceptible... (except inside my nose)...
...but from above... outside the atmosphere... all this will
look very different... and it may be completely silent... because there
there is no air...
the writer returns home... where he continues writing... pausing now to
ask what he is doing:
...assembling letter shapes and words...
with simplified punctuation... not writing things just spoken but noting
and inventing them as he writes... the secret valley is within... as is
the whole message...
..no... this is not a message... it's the
abstract world of writing... formed indirectly of the names of the
things themselves...
two days later:
...i came across plenty of
blackberries and filled a water bottle with large sweet ones ready to
eat...
...while on the way to gather them the motive of gain
almost destroyed thepleasant atmosphere of walking only to note whatever
happens... with little idea of what that might be...
...on that rather hurried walk to gather wild food i passed two front
gardens in which were the circular leaves of nasturtium... a garden
flower i don't remember seeing since the ones that grew where we lived
as children in the early thirties... we used to suck honey from the
nasturtium flowers and put the circular leaves in sandwiches...
...Wiki notes that nasturtium is a good plant for children to grow...
and also to eat... (without utilitarian motives i presume... or with
pretended ones!)
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