online: 21 september 2012 modified: 19 september 2012 19 september 2012 autumnal afternoon
seeking direction
...after a picnic in afternoon sun i'm pausing at the old hockey field to see what the newly planted wild flowers are doing now that temporary fencing has been removed...
...most of the new wild plants are about 50 cm tall... or taller... and look bedraggled... as if experiencing the vegetative equivalent of shock... or fright... or loss of direction...
...feeling at a loss myself i decide to sit here until i too recover direction...
...on looking about i enjoy the absence of people... but now a man in blue with headphones runs across the field while rotating his arms in identical motions.... and now i'm alone again with two or three insects visible against the white-grey clouds... a helicopter flies swiftly north with its rotor blades sounding as if tearing the air... and another man (also in blue) runs smoothly across the short grass beside the new grown wild flowers... which now i see as standing upright... as if they've recovered their sense of direction... me too... so i decide to continue walking... in whatever direction i hear a bird call...
...at first i do not hear any bird at all... but after a minute or two a small bird calls in the oak tree beside me so i set off in that direction...
...soon reaching a bus stop... at which point i realise it is time to return... (by public transport as we used to call it)...
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