.. first page..

he wanted a love story.



unbelievable

the

deep pain she felt ; would **** her unless she did something.

unless she killed herself.

no!

walking helped, always her remedy in challenging times.

the feeling of going forward , air brushed. body moving; speeding & healing, even with fatigue & grief dragging back.

she yearned for a new page, a fresh beginning.

wren had the will to start over and needed a challenge, something else.

for 23 years she had gone along with how things panned out without question, mainly content with this.

now after that night , she thought it time to be proactive, to do something to counteract her loss.

a bus ride then, up to llanberis, up the mountain to trek . the place where her father was born and had lived all his life.

wren had moved away in her youth, a job had come up in liverpool in the arts and she was accepted. as before she went with the flow.

she had not gone back for long, only to see dad. she never visited the village or wandered the lanes, listened to the voices.

a place of slate, of stones.

she had felt apart there then.

then

her father’s voice was enough, thick with the local accent.

her speech was affected by her time in liverpool ; reverted back unintentionally when she crossed the border.

she knew how she looked even without glancing a mirror. small., thin, bedraggled & careless, reflecting her mood.

her dad had named her after the bird with her being so tiny at birth. her bones felt brittle now like that bird.

a bird’s name

a bird’s frame

the bus came.

always on time

she wondered how they managed that with all the distance, the hazards between. one driver explained that he worked it one stop to the next, his eye on the time.

she got on, showed her pass and said she was heading for snowdon

” is that all you got” he said, looking at her bag. most passengers would have more.

” it is all that i have , yes, it is all i have ” she said and in that moment the idea came.

while walking

she will look for the dunnock.

the little brown bird found down in the dirt.

not many on the bus; all spaced apart. the driver whistled through his teeth breaking the air, while wren inwardly pointed to all the familiar landmarks on the route. she wiped the window with the back of her coat sleeve to see better.

settled for a few hours’ travel, her mind drifting back, thinking on that life changing moment

when he had said he wanted a love story

he had wanted more description, she suggested one used imagination.

each chapter a day; each day a chapter, each chapter a bird.

each day a drawing*

.last page.

she wanted to find the dunnock,; she searched and found the dunnock.

“the dunnock died as all things die”

she chanted to herself while rocking.

yet yet

all had come round, come clear.

older now . body and mind.

she knew he had wanted a love story and while she imagined what he meant , she had found love in herself for this little thing.

the bird

which

now lay in her upturned palm. light ,still and hardly there yet very there. no weight in the little bones.

it had lived its time while she had watched daily.

the space between remembered.

he had been right when he told her that dunnocks were found down in the dirt.

a big man wearing binoculars looking for the hawfinch which frequented the yew trees by her father’s house.

she had stayed longer with dad than intended, explored the lanes this visit, stopped to hear the village voices.

this man had been a visitor and he was right.

there at the bottom of the hedge she had found it.

you have read what comes between these pages, the story of a spring into summer.

the story of a wren regaining hope.

that morning the letter came; she read that due to her long absence her job in liverpool had gone. at that moment she noted that her voice had changed back permanently with the border and the liver bird had flown.

she went to her dad at the gate and to the bird man; told him she would stay.

come home.

he touched her head lightly; the bird man also. the three walked back into the house together. they took the dead dunnock to preserve some how.

they closed the door.

you wanted a love story. this is now yours to keep. it is a gift.

snatches of a life of care.

the end page is shorter for most was said between.

It's cold in Duhallow this morning and the fields that were green yesterday
Lay chilled to the frost that the night brought a cover of silvery gray
And the little dunnock on bare hedgerow too cold and too hungry to sing
On **** branch he perch sad and silent the hardship that January can bring.

The robins and sparrows by back door like beggars they wait to be fed
In hope that when breakfast is eaten the housewife might throw out some bread
With no thought for song or for nesting their battle is to stay alive
How many will live to see April the Winter so hard to survive?

The first heavy snows of the Winter have fallen on the higher ground
On Clara, Shrone and Caherbarnagh the hills are so white all around
The blackbird and thrush on the bare branch their feathers fluffed against the chill
And hare has come down to the lowland there's nothing to eat on the hill.

But I can remember the bright days when sun shone on the leafy tree
And robins and thrushes and finches piped in the woods of Knocknagree
And to her nest on barn rafters the sparrow brought feathers and hay
And out on the dandelion meadow the pipit sang all through the day.

Young calves and young lambs in green pastures were full of the frolics of Spring
And joy too had come to the river the song of the dipper did ring
And moorhen was out with her babies and she chirped loud if human was near
Her first lesson to them survival to teach them the meaning of fear.

It's cold in Duhallow this morning the thrush silent on the bare tree
And gray on the fields and the hedgerows and gray over all Knocknagree
But I can remember the bright days when nesting birds piped all the day
And hedgerows and woodlands and meadows smelt sweet with the blossoms of May.

As local as shoe leather,
though laced a little differently
I still feel the pull of aul boody,
aul boy,
a voice of ancient things

this impossible centre of England
with the flow of Plantagenet
of Watling
of Nene and Welland
where nothing happens
but everything has

rich in silver willow
and tannery stink
still giving cause to think,
to feel Clare’s fears
as the inexorable tarmac is laid
and each day passed
as the hedged wren and dunnock
begin to explain
green and pleasant pains

Joan used to tell me about the day you were planted
Fifty eight long years ago
Now she is gone and you have fallen
Defeated by years of strong winds

Twelve years I’ve watched
From my bedroom window
Seen your beauty change
With each passing season

Watched so many birds rest
In your thick heavy branches
Flitting forth and back
To collect seed from the feeders

Great ***, blue ***, long-tailed *** (like lollipops)
And the not so often beautiful coal ***
Greater spotted woodpecker, Male and female
Crow and dove, robin and chaffinch
Dunnock, nuthatch and the rarely seen Yellowhammer

I’m sitting here looking at the empty space
That you used to occupy
It seems so bare, even barren
Not to see your branches spreading outwards
In welcome to the wildlife that came

Now you lay horizontal across the ditch
Trunk torn from its rightful place by a storm
Leaving a big empty space
That opens the view across the common to the woods

As lovely as the view is and I’m grateful for it
It will not compensate for the view of you each morning
As I look at the open space you left in the hedgerow
I realise you have left a similar space in my heart

Farewell my regal hawthorn tree
You will not be forgotten
All the memories will stay in so many hearts
And the birds are still resting for now
In you sadly fallen body

       Copyright 15/01/20 Janice Chinn

I lay and looked up today
and on the cerulean blue
a letter was written in different hands

Starlings told of the everyday
shuttling from A to B til teatime
while flits of blue *** and dunnock
hinted at local worry
maybe at the lackadaisical cat
whose frou-frou collar
ruins the hunt

In fancy script the swifts
wrote high and mighty
chasing the imperceptible,
so not so distant really

The paragraph break of the red kite
weighed in
and wings and fingers stopped
to marvel
at near perfect epistolary

no one about

the whole way down the back road.

two squirrels so i talk to them, and the tiny

dunnock bird



he said they are  brown

down

in the dirt and this is so



they often are as  are we

all



good place to be in earth

to plant and grow while



small birds look for food



the story continues





now you know that the bird has died

and her wish was to preserve it somehow



that was yesterday



she had balanced it on a cotton reel, you know the old wooden ones with red thread.

this balancing thing

started years ago

in childhood, a game. later life a habit, a meditation.

she watched others, the artists balancing stones

copied , then balanced all sorts, soaps. boxes, anything really.

perhaps it is a control thing she supposed as she balanced the bird.



today



it stays easily. she looks a long time, takes her phone

and photographs.



looks, looks

adds objects.

photographs .

waits for dusk, for the light to change

lowers and photographs. a different app and repeat

another photograph.



a rest

to diary  checks on the body each day for corruption, by now in the

clean studio below.

she had tried other things in the past to preserve. a robin in the freezer all the time she was away and had  been succesful in that it was complete but came with her fear of the thaw : so never was.

now  next to the peas in the vegetable section.

the shrew had been sat in a nutshell and had dried naturally as did the  bird that came down the chimney and stuck in the stove that summer. found on a chill day when opening the door to start a fire.

she makes the decision on drying though knows the chances are slim.

meantime the photographs continue and move on to scanning the wee thing alone, then with varying backgrounds and degrees of success.

skulls .

there are a lot of skulls down here in the studio. a few any way. she is prone to her own excitement and exaggeration.

bird skulls found, placed, kept, some  on cotton reels under glass domes. her father had done that now she followed his lead. she remembered the time he had placed a mouse corpse under a bell jar to see how that worked

he was dismayed at the decay and mildew; the stench when he lifted that jar. his experiment a failure.



it was that  same day when the news was full of belsen, the camps and with that smell of one dead creature  as company he despaired at history. he despaired still over the present time, wordless.



he had told her about it all over and over in shame for what they had done; still do.



her mind had wandered back, with time to remember, reflect. she drags back to the now to the task in hand.



the preservation.



the words remain.



** each chapter a day; each day a chapter, each chapter a bird.

each day a drawing



so she continues in the studio drawing.

she likes this  feeling

of

honest marks and lines different from the immediate gratification of a photograph. though with the latter she enjoys the  creativity of editing, layering ; drawing in on the original idea.



time passes, passes. her mind  so focussed that world outside her own  skin forgotten.

time passes.

the bird

preserved.

it is a gift.





there is no one about down the back road

just two squirrels.



i wander up the ***** to the studio

to see if she is in.

sitting like a stone
in your stomach. Like a branch
a dunnock perches on. The drone
of a deadbeat song. The lull of

a rainy afternoon when you
open the door, your skin wrinkled
like a prune. Your wet hair matted
to your face like grey cardigan wool

that pills. But you cannot shave off. So,
you toss it in your bedroom drawer,
along with the cards and pictures of him.
Cheers to the years you were green

and slim. This pain was an ice pick
chipping at you, the man’s tool! Now
it’s a rusty piece of metal that lost shine.
Cannot cut an orange rind. But it’s keeping time.