Heading down the hill that runs on from the bottom of Broughton Street the other day, on a day off going towards a lunch cooked by someone else this is simply what I saw. I had to add, hopefully just enough and not too much, of the embroidery of pretention and imagination to complete the picture here.
Good, bad or indifferent, it was one of those occasions where the words just come with relative ease. So I’m sat in the window, favourite seat, watching the world and the words make their different ways to where they wanted to be. Along with the heat of the coffee was the warm relaxed ease of the whole proceedings. There’s nothing much added here after the initial burst and very little polish but it was a rewarding day in its simple way. A good one just to be and to leave the words alone for once.
111.The soup and bread. (03 Nov. 2015).
The persistent leaves upon the hedge,
Green regardless of month or week,
Cocking their snook at winters coming face,
Race past my shoulder to my left,
Still, as I flee down the hill,
While leaves of a less fortunate, deciduous breed,
Fall round my head,
Land at my feet,
And yet others fall and land upon the green,
To give the hedge a crown,
Continuing,
Leaving behind the roadside screen,
That shields a quieter road behind,
Unseen trees wave farewell to my back,
Seeing my skirting of Stockbridge,
My halting before Inverleith,
Then with the chill of autumn,
Successfully fled,
Destination, I’m inside,
Mid-hill, Canonmills,
Tis’ the Bluebird that does not sing,
Though plenty have done from within,
I’m comfortably sat at last,
With jacket open and new words begun,
“The persistent leaves upon the hedge….”
With coffee black to accompany.
The soup and bread.
© Jim Laing 2015.
