L'aura del Campo

4 Études written in November

Étude in grey

And he will wash it away. Old friends sloughing off like snake skin. New ones left wondering at his wariness. He has no past he wishes to share. He stares at a wet ring from his coffee mug, wipes it dry. He can handle small hurts.

But not big ones. Never.

They must remain locked deep within. Not even family knows where they're hidden. But he learned to avoid them, just-in-case, long ago. What good would it do now to take out tarnished trinkets, hold them up to the light, to see them for what they were. Lessons.

He would rather the world remain ignorant. There's no gain in living in the past; but then, there's no gain living in this present. He once dreamed of the future, whatever good that would've done. It didn't come to pass, no more than those nightmares he perished in before every dawn.

Every night he still perishes before dawn.

Reborn, they would say, he welcomes the brightening day... around noon. Two coffees later he will speak to whomever about whatever, whenever they deign to speak to him. They will chat about the weather, whether or not the home team will win, and who will die next.

It won't matter of course. Life sucks; death stinks. Like the dirty dishes he left in the sink... at the end of the day, he will wash it all away.

Étude in sunshine

Thankful for glass, he sits by this window. Sunshine streams in, snowflakes can't enter. Plant shadows defy the cold on the other side of the pane. They heal the paint-flaking walls, conceal this truth. Their servant is dying.

But so are they. They bloom in one last frenzy, casting doubt on the darkness of eternity... as if their short lives mattered.

Dust motes and one desperate fly. Why would anyone want to flee this spot. Sun warms the empty cocoon inside. Outside, sunshine does what it can, casting light and shadow on all the living and the freed.

He sits by this window sharing thoughts cold glass cannot read.

Étude for a green poet

The splash was what it was all about. How a frog becomes more than some green token of spring, how a pond becomes more than a pool of water. When he jumped he sent ripples across the thoughts of sleeping masses. They woke to the sound and the shimmer.

One small leap. One short jump. So many centuries ago but never forgotten. Those ripples are now just reaching this shore. Who will listen. Who will heed their wisdom: take a jump, make a ripple, become one with the immortal pond till it laps some distant shore.

Étude on respect for the cold

You'll die in this cold if you won't respect it. Go find a cave; go snuggle with a bear! Too late to follow that wisdom of geese that veed to the south where warmth still holds sway.

Respect the dearth of warmth that you knew as what froze yesterday, freezes today... and tomorrow. Don't sorrow the passing of autumn. Winter won't care. Nor should you.

Learn to respect. How to bow to the seasons. How to embrace this sweet death, perchance to live again come the melt. Like iris snug in its rhizome, the elm hankered down in its roots, learn to go with the flow, not like the river choked over with ice, like deep channels still making their way to the sea.

© Kåre Enga (29.november.2015)