These days I have been struggling, trying to press back those overwhelming organs of the past. Rushing back and forth, the resistance, a line made of fierce. Or fog to the sting of grief. Each day. I cannot say exactly what grips but something savage is at work. Each hour. As I try to sure up the sides of this grieving well with additional staves of fresh timber, the trauma continues to leak here and here, do you see where I am pointing? Each time I return to the site of that holding, a new hole seems to perforate the skin. Just big enough for the point of a pencil. To mark for eternity, what is open. What remains. Think of something really good she says. Think of a place that makes you feel safe. The directive is more complicated than it seems. Before me now, that great stand of ancient yews in Borrowdale. Arms of twisted fibre, reaching up and around that deep green valley. Me, feet in liverwort, thick with envy for the still.
