The Ghost of Robert Graves

DP

The heath grows darker by the day heading inevitably towards the shortest day. Sunrise seems to happen at midday and dusk an hour later. The weeks follow a calendar made up of fog and frost with the occasional gale coming down the chimney with a screeching howl. Wood burns but doesn’t heat the hearth. The last of the auctions done but no chance to cast as No 1 and No 2 are frozen over, the marginal mud crisp underfoot and fat orange leathers cruising under the ice. Roach showing as the light fades as clean and silver as a Christmas Nordic hoard, almost luminescent. Walks at the same hour the order of the day to gather fallen wood for the fire in hollows revealed by the final falling of the leaves. The silouhette of Robert Graves on the hill just as the sun slips away. His velvet collar turned up and mud on the soles of his boot.

The first line of ‘Winter’ on the birdtable.

JA