November rains lashed the valley, slanting from first light across the withered mountain folds, sinking the garden until a few last salads floated like weeds cast up by the sea. As I worked at my desk the woodstove clicked and hummed behind me, sometimes hissing at a wet seam in the beech or releasing smoke … Continue reading Glimpsed, In Passing: 2012
Tag: life
The Shape of a Scent
I stand in the midst of the forest, beneath a shower of leaves. It’s as though a treasure chest has been tipped from the sky, spilling its glittering riches. The woodland surface is woven in a pattern of copper and gold, stitched with the sharp shadows of trees. Sunlight pours into the hollows as if … Continue reading The Shape of a Scent
A Last Dance
These days are cast like a spell, stretched taut and seamless across two seasons. Spun from sunlight and warm winds, they’re days with bright promise still inside them, nested there like pearls. The high vaulting sky might be the sea, as if by leaping into it you could float clear across the blue. Sailing without … Continue reading A Last Dance
A Line Unwinding
It is there at the beginning of each day, and again at its end, like a home you’ve always known. It unfurls like a ribbon through mist and glare, rising and falling to the shifting tenure of the weather, a place of processionals sung by skylark and peewit and plover. And when it slips like a knife … Continue reading A Line Unwinding
Being in Mysteries
For an audio version of 'Being in Mysteries' click the play button The petals are like stiff velvet against my fingers, and the entrancing colour of blood. There is something otherworldly about this parasitic species; they don’t seem to belong to the surrounding community of plants. They’re amongst the rarest flowers in Europe and yet … Continue reading Being in Mysteries
Julian Hoffman 