A Morning I Almost Wish I Could Keep

The sky had not yet surrendered its darkness when I stepped outside this morning, and beyond the trees, where the distant hills were barely distinguishable from the clouds above them, a narrow ribbon of amber light was beginning to gather along the horizon. The air was cool against my cheeks, the grass damp beneath my boots, and I stood for a little while watching the first colours of the day emerge, wondering how many mornings these old trees had witnessed, how many times their branches had been illuminated by the rising sun long before I ever came to know them.

I followed the familiar path towards the meadows, where the grasses were heavy with dew, each slender blade holding a tiny droplet that trembled in the faintest movement of air, while the first sunlight found its way between them and scattered little circles of gold across the ground. I lowered my camera and looked more closely, losing myself amongst the smallest details until the great expanse of sky above me seemed to exist within a single drop of water, suspended at the very tip of a blade of grass.

And somewhere amongst it all, a little white feather. It had become caught between the stems, its delicate edges resting against the green, so light that I wondered whether the even the gentlest breeze might lift it from its place and carry it across the meadow. I crouched beside it, following the fine arrangement of its barbs with my eyes, imagining the bird to which it had once belonged, the branches upon which it might have rested and the skies through which it had travelled before leaving this tiny part of itself behind.

I wondered whether it had fallen only moments before my arrival, or whether it had fallen only moments before my arrival, or whether it had spent the night amongst the grasses, gathering dew while darkness settled over the fields.

Further along, the hawthorn branches were carrying their little red haws, some hanging in pairs beneath the leaves, others gathered together amongst the thorns, their skins catching the warmth of the growing light. I remembered these same branches earlier in the year, when their flowers had filled the hedgerows with white, and found myself thinking of all the hours that had passed between blossom and fruit, the countless mornings of sunlight and evenings of rain, the bees that had visited the flowers and the slow, extraordinary work of producing something that would eventually feed the birds and carry the possibility of another hawthorn within it.

The sun was higher now, although much of the sky remained hidden beneath a great gathering of cloud, and every so often a narrow opening would allow the light to spill across the countryside, illuminating the edges of the trees before disappearing again. I watched the branches emerge from shadow, their leaves briefly turning gold, while beneath them the fields rested in that soft, muted green that has returned with the September rain.

I have walked these paths so many times, yet I cannot remember ever finding them quite as they were the last time. A familiar branch has grown a little further towards the light, a flower I photographed only days ago has begun to form its seeds, and the grasses that once stood tall and honey-coloured have been gathered for hay, leaving fresh green growth beneath the cooling autumn sky.

I wonder how many little changes take place here between one visit and the next, how many seeds fall unnoticed into the earth and how many birds rest briefly upon these branches before continuing towards places I shall never see.

Eventually, the sunlight began to spread more generously across the fields, and the darkness that had accompanied my first footsteps was no where to be found. The dew was beginning to disappear and the trees had regained their familiar shapes. I turned towards the gate, carrying the scent of damp earth upon my clothes and the memory of that little feather resting amongst the grass.

Somewhere behind me, the morning continued without me, the light moving gradually through the branches, the birds coming and going the tiny droplets of dew returning to the air. And I thought of the feather, still lying where I had left it, beneath a sky that would never look quite the same again.