Sunrise stills the marsh, unfastening its vast expanse to yawning light.

Water birds stir and take wing, gliding into blue cloudless promise. Tides shift and bury lingering echoes of the past. I learn how to love as peace bathes my soul.

Blossoming marsh light

Troths blushing warmth tomorrow

Breath spark awakens.

Her eyelids prise open as the first tendrils of morning light lever through cracks in the shutters.

In the distance, a month-old baby mews in protest at a disappointing start to the day.

She smiles softly and clasps the warmth of her partner’s back for one extra moment before rolling, yawning, into another day’s tasks.

A few steps down the corridor, and into the kitchen, light has already banished darkness.

The air is chill but not frosty.

From the fridge, a bottle of milk. A cupful of oats are set to simmer on the stove. She pulls open the drawer in the shiny new kitchen unit: all cheery pastel.

Inside: the familiar, battered, incongruous, wooden cutlery box.

They had picked it up in a jumble sale when they first squeezed together in a tiny bed-sit, and drew the curtain when the priest came to call.

It had just two large partitions to be shared by knives, forks and spoons, plus some smaller ones for peelers and teaspoons.

Danny had emptied the dishwasher. As always, knives and forks were tumbled together in one partition, some head to tail; large spoons dumped in the other.

Her mind sparkles with renegade memory. Some moments are misty. Some polished diamond.

She sits in the refectory at the Convent School with her best friend. They dig into their pudding with spoons. Sister Bonaventure chides them for not acting like young ladies. “Use forks with spoons, for deserts, girls!” Desert was always the best part.

She grasps the notepad and pencil clinging to the shiny fridge. After a moment’s thought, she scribbles a reminder, tears off the page and folds it up carefully, before tidying the old box of cutlery.

As she serves the creamy porridge into two bowls, Danny pads in, barefoot and bleary.

He opens the drawer and, reaching without looking, draws out a knife. He glances at it, bemused.

In the larger partition the forks and spoons are neatly snuggled back to back.

He plucks out a folded note, opens it slowly, and reads:

Bonaventure

Dance everlasting

Fork feasts with amorous knife:

Joins spoon for desert.

Without looking, she sees the raised eyebrow and the quizzical frown.

She comes close to his half-turned back and hitches her hands round his waist.

She rests her head on a convenient shoulder.

Smiles her secret smile.

   The months and days are the travellers of eternity. The years that come and go are also voyagers. Those who float away their lives on ships or who grow old leading horses are forever journeying, and their homes are wherever their travels take them. Many of the men of old died on the road, and I too for years past have been stirred by the sight of a solitary cloud drifting with the wind to ceaseless thoughts of roaming.

    Last year I spent wandering along the seacoast. In autumn I returned to my cottage on the river and swept away the cobwebs. Gradually the year drew to its close. When spring came and there was mist in the air, I thought of crossing the Barrier of Shirakawa into Oku. I seemed to be possessed by the spirits of wanderlust, and they all but deprived me of my senses. The guardian spirits of the road beckoned, and I could not settle down to work.

    I patched my torn trousers and changed the cord on my bamboo hat. To strengthen my legs for the journey I had moxa burned on my shins. By then I could think of nothing but the moon at Matsushima. When I sold my cottage and moved to Sampū’s villa, to stay until I started on my journey, I hung this poem on a post in my hut:

   Even a thatched hut

   May change with a new owner

   Into a doll’s house.

a hand raised to cut out some of the glare. still only see glare. worry stalked my thoughts while hunger rattled on my ribs. Time being beaten out by the slap of tattered sail against the broken limb that should be stout skywards not right angled into the .... glare.

i am a fair sailor on a regular day. today i am a burnt out wreck foolishly adrift after capsize. ok foolhardy but who would not wish to be in the blue on such a day. a day 5 or 6 ago on a whim and gentle wind to gather me into nature. She has done with me now and I waft away into sleep.

There I am carried away from desperate thirst and pained imagined goodbyes to a place that seems cool and if not dark it is at least bare of violent light. I blink. I did, it hurt. All is grey apart from land-born angels pointing home.

flat grey sky

is hiding seagulls

with rain on wings

They drilled for days into the rocky depths. Their hopes of profit and black gold were raised high. The long metal bit pierced down through the ancient Miocene-Pliocene rocks. The drillers knew they had failed thrice before, but their determination to find oil in this land never faded. The drill dug and dug for 390 feet until a geyser of bubbling oil fired to the derrick's top. A cheerful applause was heard all throughout the canyon as their supervisor proclaimed:

                    Remember this day

                    We made history right here

                    In California

California's first successful oil well, dubbed Pico #4, gave birth to the oil industry in the western United States. Many would then gather to populate the nearby towns and expand them more and more until they formed a large community, then a county that will be later known as Los Angeles.