A small anthologyFive pages, set in ink
Arrow keys turn the page. A title, pressed, reads plainly.
Rain. It has been raining since the word for it. It rains on the just and on the bus stop, on the roofers, who have all gone home, on the washing, which was nearly dry, on the sea, which has no use for more. It rains on everything except one umbrella.
River. The river left the hill so long ago it tells the story wrong, says it began as rain, as a rumour, as somebody's well, and where the others join it takes their names and their silt and goes on, wider, slower, sure of everything except the place it calls upstream and the sea, which it has not met yet. First tributary: a brook that had a name and local opinions came down the hill and lost both. Second tributary: a ditch the farmers straightened arrived on time and brought the fields with it.
Heron. One grey afternoon it stands in the shallows like a question the pond has stopped expecting an answer to, and waits on one leg, then the other. It has outwaited better fish. Not yet. Not yet. Now.
Stair. A sentence is a staircase you go down carrying one full stop until you find the floor.
Breath. You borrow about a pint of air, keep it for as long as a thought and give it back warm, and do this until you don't. In. Out.