Winter.

January 23, 2011 at 12:01 pm (Uncategorized)

I’m a slave for a tight colour palate, and living now, as I do, on the edge of the wilderness, I’m free to enjoy winter for what it is. I take long, lonely walks through trails in these woods, through fresh snow, grey sky, and a soft gradient of browns: earth, branch, bole, briar, stone, wren. I come home and strip off my warm things, pace the wood floors which, to me, feel long and narrow, like a ship, moving always between kettle and chair, kettle and chair. I measure these months of solitude by the teacup. I go to my fish counter and back, up hills, up the same long road, past churches and houses, an old orphanage, tangles of trees and the beauty of brambles, past crossroads and on highways. I sell my wares and do my work and I come back, downhill in the cold. I wash in and out, my own tide, pulled by a moon that I feel always and so rarely touch.