The Grassling by Elizabeth-jane Burnett

Author:Elizabeth-jane Burnett
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780141989631
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd

25

Whisper

February is the time of the firsts. First snowdrop. First lamb. First sloe. Slips of white in muted days. First feet. A lamb runs to its mother. First knowledge of legs. First speed. First daffodil. First cluster. First field. First prolonged day, as a light turns on its yellow. First cherry. A dust of pink in the branches. First blush. First crocus. First deep colour. The lamb falls. Rises. First cry. First sound from the body. This is what it sounds like in air. This is what it is like outside its body. First baa. First bee. First bud. In the camellia. First flower. First sweetness in the soil, lifted, its clumps soaked in open narcissus swimming over the opening soil, the scent, the deep springing lungfuls. And though cold and though rain and though cold and though rain – a white and a yellow. And through cold and through rain, through cold and through rain – a pink and a purple. A chaffinch sneezes. Colour approaching like a storm.

Buzzards come. One swoops overhead. Two. Weightless. They cry and pass. Five. Circling, swirling together feathered. Up. One’s wings fold in like a concertina as it plummets down, pumping the air to its advantage. There must be more ways to move the body through air, more ways to play it. It flaps its arms. Grounded, it doesn’t make much difference. But what if suspended? Bungee-jumping while pumping the arms might give some approximation, up to the point of the ping back up. It looks round for a smaller experiment. Flapping the arms and jumping on the spot is just a poor woman’s star jump. Then, as it moves, the ground swells with wind. Air knocks against the back of its legs, whips against its hands and through its fingers. It climbs onto a bench. It jumps and flaps. Conscious of its weak back, it worries and swells. For a moment, it feels fat in the air, fattened by air, p(l)umped. Landing is strained. Its spine ticks.

Its next target is a tree stump. Too high to climb onto conventionally, first it sits on it, then moves its legs up, one after the other, folded under. In a contorted squat, it ripples up through the body, until standing. The narrowness of its dais is alarming, and even its hip-level height – to one with vertigo – feels uneasy. It takes all its nerve to flap as the wood rocks. It leaps and lands in the knees, forgetting to soften the legs. None of this the buzzard has to worry about, who lands on pillows of air, who drops and floats without a jolt.

Finally, it reaches the fallen beech, which has been its goal since beginning this buzzarding. Fairly easy to climb and backing onto a river, the beech draws it to its possibilities. But it is impossible to climb in wellies. It takes off boots, then socks. Bare-footed, it lifts itself onto the gnarled wood and wet, trailing ivy. It is stabbingly cold. Lifting up through the body it glances down into the water.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.