Seen from the bus (not today) on Kensington, a man in a cream kurta (long shirt) with matching cap, white embroidered, cradling in his arm a bundle, the white points of which must be sharp, as he twice tries to rest this end of the bundle in his palm then quickly shifts it up. A… Continue reading Featherlies
Category: Debra Martens
Midsummer
Did you ever wonder how the fairies and lovers could, semi-dressed, spend the night in a woods in the third week of June in Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream? After three Mays in England, I can explain how June can be mid-summer. Of the four warm sunny days that occur each year, two fall before… Continue reading Midsummer
Lupercalia
After sunset, wind rants along the street, kicking newspapers and plastic bags ahead of it, snapping branches down. Into the lamplight hurry suited young men clutching flowers to their chests. Outside a restaurant a man in a car hurls words at a delivery man standing on the sidewalk, "Move your fucking bike, man."
Reprieve
Tube strike from Tuesday evening through to Friday morning. Water causes natural disasters in areas away from London. The South Downs flooded. A rail line washed away in Dawlish on the south coast of Devon. On Wednesday it rained sideways. Yesterday in the park in the straight downpouring rain, empty of nannies and children, a… Continue reading Reprieve
Street Candy
Ahead of me, a traffic warden in his nasturtium-orange rainwear walks beside a construction worker, his rain pants and vest the colour of an almost ripe lemon. The colours of candy, of a PEZ, of a sweet and sour. Slow in their boots, shoulders touching, they turn out of the rain into the organic coffee… Continue reading Street Candy
Sounds
Sounds of Spring in London. The leafblower replaced by the handheld pressurized water cleaner, cleaning slippery green off sidewalks. Birds turning up the volume, showing off. The clop clop of the hooves of the police horses soft under the jackhammering at the construction site. The park gardeners pause in their leaf-gathering to look at the… Continue reading Sounds
Moss
In a January melt in Ottawa there would be sleeves of ice on tree trunks and ice varnishing sidewalk edges. After a winter of rain in London, moss slicks the bottom of walls and walk edgings, and adheres to tree trunks in a bright green, almost fluorescent. Not the deep soft green of moss growing… Continue reading Moss
January
Brown fronds folded down shawl a palm tree.
DEBRA MARTENS 