You Are a Wandering Book
Walk 40- Gerrards Cross to Cookham. Saturday September 16, 2000 Written on a hill outside the Church of St Nicholas, near Cookham, Berkshire. Present: Petra, Steve, Nicholas, Mike.
You are a wandering book.
The story of your life is being written page by page
Word by word and every sentence
has not a full stop but a little clock- showing the time it took you to write that.
It's not complete for me until I can write it down
Before this church we visited another, where
the diligent organist showed us all the place-names.
Before leaving, Nicholas put coins in the collection-box as always
A cow makes a move towards me
His leg trembling.
He then steps back- a young (teenage?) cow with soft white skin
-But I can't write fast enough to capture the mystery and wonder of it all
The wind is whispering urgently, in a conspiracy with the trees.
Further down the slope, Mike, wearing his butterfly-collector's hat,
is gazing scientifically at the valley- possibly counting how many
fenceposts in each field. He walks towards a cluster of tall autumnal trees.
I can just see the hands and knees of Nicholas sticking out from behind a bush.
Feet in all-day wellingtons. Hands busy, one holding down pages in the wind, the other Writing some new stroke of Genius.
Petra hides somewhere, writing her diary.
'You'll feel wonderfully secure once you've told your life story' Mike said
'Like you really belong!'
'Right now I feel the opposite!'
So I told it for her, in five minutes. The part which Nicholas kept searching her about
Was of course, the taking of LSD with friends on an island beach, every weekend for a year.
Now the half-hour of creativity has ended, but where is everyone?
A train chugs to Slough in the distant valley. A yawning sound from the graveyard.
Meanwhile Nature makes a painting with light across the horizon
The sky mainly and miraculously blue, after yesterday's cathartic rains.
Grey clouds shift away to the left.
A horse-chestnut tree swaying and sighing in September melancholia
Nature is utterly ruthless- yet cleansing, forgiving, all-encompassing.
'Are you receptive to the suchness
Do you believe in the miracle?'
Outside the church there is a stone-seat monument
The world moves outwards in rays, in radiant waves of energy.
'Come on boys and girls- it's time to go!'
Caress of the wind is on my skin
First and last intimacy-
I don't have to believe, I know.