The fields are jubilant

Let the fields be jubilant and everything in them,

Let all the trees of the forest sing for joy ~ Psalm 96:12

With the setting sun etching our shapes in amber lines and curves, I reach up and pluck a yellow plum from the branch above my head. I place it in the small hand held out to me. I am defenceless against the the fierce and tender love for the child at my side. This boy with his wispy halo of flaxen hair, framing a delicate face, from which eyes the colour of an Autumn sky, sparkle with unclouded vivacity. My eyes were once the same clear blue, but time has marked them with melancholy, hidden under heavy eyelids. The lines around them attesting more to bitterness than laughter. The late afternoon is balmy, the heat of the day trapped along with the heady scent of ripe fruit surrounding us. A clumsy puppy of indeterminable breed is stalking a sacred Ibis - striding undaunted and out of reach. I have passed the flair and boldness of youth, but I no longer care for the fickleness of what is merely skin-deep. Which never brought me more than brief periods of prideful contentment and more hapless confessions of love, than I ever cared for. My hair, once a cascade of gold down my back, is now pulled into faded fawn at the nape of my neck. My feet are calloused and often bare, since I prefer it that way now. My hands bear the marks of exposure to sun and soil. The skin on my forearms, once creamy and soft, now freckled and browned.

From where I stand, the neat rows of an orchard draw your eyes towards a squat stone cottage, set in an alcove of Stinkwood and Camphor trees. It is a peaceful setting, although the stillness around the house with it's closed shutters and paint flaking from the front door, gives one almost the sense that it may not be occupied. But the garden tap has a relatively new hose attached to it, moisture oozing into quivering tears from the place where the spout and the pipe meet. Runners of wild strawberries have grown from the place where the drops collect - like veins of gossip, spreading unchecked. The last light of dusk is kind to the old place, distracting from the obvious neglect. Rust-holes in the gutters, the remains of an old BSA Spitfire motorcycle, crumpled against the side-wall, a dog kennel with a caved in gypsum roof. A scraggly clambering rose clings to the wooden trellis arched over the door. There is a puddle around it's trunk, where the dog's water bowl is emptied each day. The first fragile buds are starting to form, tight, secret little fists, defiant of the decay around them.

Here among the trees, exuding abundance and life, with the mountains standing sentinel behind us and the sun working it's alchemy on the landscape, time slows and draws around me in one exquisite moment of wholeness. With the rush of the river nearby, the child at my side so vital and dear, a sweetness settles over me. I long to surrender to it, to imagine that what lies beyond this moment, has no consequence...

Solitude has never held a threat for me. It is the memories that enter the solitude that eat away at my resolve, like water dripping on a stone. One agonising drop at a time. Wearing away at the hard surface, until the stone yields and curves inwards. Softened, but also diminished. Waking with the waxing moon pouring quicksilver streaks over the sheets. And the slow realisation that the room is still, so still. The night sky which used to glow with such promise, a cold vast dome.

We live a good life, this child and I. Uncomplicated, devoid of pressures and expectations. We are content in each other - too content. We have not known hunger, our surroundings are awe-inspiring, the air pristine. The boy longs for no more. He was born here. To him the craggy crevices of the mountains, are the markings of a giant beast at rest. A gentle giant, which may stir one day and walk the earth with great careful strides. To him the cool forest whispers secrets and lullabies. The brooks and streams babble in a language that he understands. There is always something to amuse him, some new creature or critter to hold his rapture for a while. But every so often, I catch his eyes searching, staring quizzically at an empty chair or listening for something, someone, with his head tilted. There will come a day, when he will ask, and the question throbs against my temples. How will I answer, how will I explain...?