Sunday 30 May 2010

Epitaph.

The walk to the park involves a cut through a grave-yard. .

I once walked through it alone on an evening in which the scrubby churchyard cemetery looked beautiful; the sun setting over the park turned the graves into mirrored monoliths, the silence gifted it a sense of solitude you rarely perceive in a city.

I can’t say whether I’d stopped walking to savour the moment or not, but with a sudden crash I was suddenly in the company of a small sparrow, writhing in the dust.

The bird was clearly hurt and scared, unable to fly. My instinct was take it back to the house and try and nurse it back to health. But I was a good walk from home and couldn’t possibly carry this flurry of frenetic energy across main roads all the way home.

It was a moment in which I felt truly helpless; alone in the prime of my youth, surrounded by the dead and confronted by the dying.

I eventually walked on, and ran through the park so hard it stung my eyes and crippled my sides.

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