With the heat on my back and the discomfort of the masked day behind me, I clambered over the stile to where the swallows swept low arcs over rangy meadow grass. They were unperturbed by all that was occurring below them. They wheeled and laughed in oblivious delight.
The best of the hedgerow butterflies had disappeared with July, though there were still the big, blousy ones fluttering their stuff in the open. Bold as brass. Floozies of the field, enticing us to follow them.
We chased our tails that summer. The world had tilted, and we were desperately hanging on to a mast of nature. Those who had been nine to five, seven to whenever, stretched out, rat racing, now slowed down enough to look up, to look forward, to see what they had been missing. They pointed out cows, and learnt the names of some birds, to photograph and post.
But this had been our walk. The dog and I had noticed the changes, not to announce to anyone but ourselves, everyday a proclamation, heard and felt. And the others who walked this path, in their recently acquired walking boots were filling our space. I was affronted by their brazen acquisition of what I’d always known. A buzzard cried.
The dog returned from the long grass with a ball that wasn’t ours. A ball so soft it was dented by his soft jowls. He held it gently, and ever so proudly. As I removed it, I felt a warmth from within, but I heard the squeals too late. The naked occupants fell from the warmth they had known, helpless into the nettles.
This was not, it seemed, my world. There was no ownership. I was no better than the ones who didn’t notice. We were all merely here. Visiting.
With thanks to Robert Burns 'To a Mouse'
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