Bayham

The myth might wear away, but the truth remains, revealed, remembered.

You reach your hand inside your pocket, thankful to be free of gloves now Spring has sprung, the promise of warmer air, tender against your skin, welcome against your open face and hands.

Your fingers feel for the smooth round pebble, a hard stone, polished. A prehistoric and permanent reminder of our own sacred geology.

Melancholy whispers surface from within, mourning, grieving, wishing my hand were here with yours. The stone feels cold, yet reassuring, with its innate strength and resilience. It has endured thousands of years, millions in fact, and remains beautiful and true. And why not?

As symbolism goes, this feels real. Breathing in the outside air you recall the ritual or early morning, sipping your tea, propped up in bed, snug beneath the Sunday covers, considering the trees beyond your bedroom window. Your ears stretching out into the silence, wanting to hear a floorboard creak, the weight of my frame treading carefully out from the room next door.

But no, instead, and while you find the stillness welcoming, you begin to concede, admitting the silence, a saddening messenger, niggling with nostalgia, giving in to needing, wanting you instead to wake from this dream, to be back on the forest, with the morning light bleeding in, golden, warm and green, seeping through the slender gaps that surround those heavy cream curtains.

Remembering younger lovers, hidden away in our dream cottage. Knots tied in beaded bracelets, threads that never break nor leave our wrists. A romance, handwritten and hand woven, sewn into our souls, loop stitched, yours, mine, ours, Avalon. Ashdown.

For a moment you stop walking, pausing to survey the horizon, accepting the silhouette of the tree line set against the soft, cloudless sky, patiently waiting for you at the far edge of this open field. The ground, softened beneath your feet, feels forgiving and accepting of your return. The hard shadow of winter, mellowing to Spring, welcoming the warmth and waiting for the clocks to roll forward and for the reach of each day to stretch a little further out into the night.

Your fingers grip the stone, reminding you of my strength, standing beside you, standing firm, like the ruined arches of Bayham's Abbey, unyielding in their union, a worship of quarried stone, a cat's cradle of architectural fingers reaching up from the hallowed ground and holding the sky, causing you to tilt your head to the heavens and connecting you with something higher, something that is not you.

You close your eyes and listen to the stream of thoughts flowing through you, choosing to recall your large wooden box, the polished lid, closed and locked. A small brass key, hanging from a thin silver chain, hidden beneath your outer layers, its tiny touch caught between your clavicles.

With your one hand pocketed, still hidden and holding a light grip around your chosen stone, you raise your free hand, fanning your fingers across your chest and pressing your tender touch, finding your pulse, your heart bumping beneath your ribs. The simple outline of that little brass key pressing into your skin and remembering me.

~II

Of bare ruin'd choirs, Shakespeare wrote, his sonnet reflecting on the remains of a church's chancel, stripped of its roof and exposed to the elements, you gently recall his words as the soothing stillness of the outdoors slowly stirs you from your Bayham daydream.

You look out across the open field, accepting the calm, rolling wash of green set beneath the pale blue; breathing in the aesthetic beauty, drawing it in through your eyes and skin, inhaling her essence into your lungs, feeling her seep into your blood and bone.

This land, under this sky, where the first of the new lambs will soon bleat and break the silence. Its permanence stays with you. And slowly you begin reconnecting, accepting the stillness, sensing the muscle of your heart become willing to relax, not weakening, just softening, daring to trust it is safe here, free of the tension that comes with emails and cases, phone calls, conflicts and resolutions.

And you shudder, recalling the horror of a workday with the sudden clarity of this insanity, the gulf between perception and reality, this thing called capitalism, that grew out of the ashes of slavery and sovereignty. A model that serves the few and blames the many, shames us into believing it is the fault of the powerless that they are without, not the fault of the privileged for taking more than they need.

Defensively you resume your stride, with defiant purpose and intention, spurred by a sudden call to action, determined to abandon these negative thoughts and put as much distance between you and them as quickly as you can.

Your eyes fix on the tree line ahead, the hem that holds the sky to the land, seemingly waiting for you on the far side of the lea, where, just there, at the edge, you know you'll find ancient entrances to the forest beyond.

These many trees, mute witness to our trivial trials and tribulations, their living rooted among their dead, their concealment, their camouflage, their conspiracy, and their shelter, all hidden within a tapestry of greens and browns.

Their shadows and their light, threading, interwoven, their fallen limbs and branches, and their long-ago leaves, shed among the moss, fern and underbrush.

Underfoot the ground begins to change, no longer the soft topsoil of fallow fields, open pasture and arable land, instead a hardening uneven terrain, with gnarled roots exposed and others hidden, stretching beneath a soft millennial mulch made from countless generations, each adding a layer with the passing of the season, shedding their summer foliage among the decay of their many fallen.

Sun dappled, shady shafts of broken light fragment between the interlocking fingers of the branches reaching overhead. Needles of daylight, breaking through this arboreal chapel, with its high vaulted ceiling, the light peppering your face as you raise your eyes to meet the confetti that now stains your skin with the golden-blue-green of this cathedral's glass.

Branches creak. Tiny feet, fur and feathers, shuffling through the detritus, rooting in the underbrush, squirrels chattering, leaves rustling, a light wind whistling around the heavier trunks, giving sway to a mournful groan, like a ship's bough on the open sea, rolling, listing, while a chorus-line of songbirds' chatter, singing for their supper.

A wren is watching. Eyeing you breathe as quietly as you can, standing stock still, feeling clumsy and heavy footed, your heart aching with wanting the forest to continue despite your interruption and intrusion. The wren's tiny eyes are on you, brilliant, liquid ink, they blink black and as wet as Welsh slate.

He is the smallest bird you could hope to see in these woods, but his song is the loudest. He speaks to you with his melody and his ballad. Subconsciously you hear his courage, he's determined, cocky and proud, brave and beautiful. You find acceptance within his song, you feel his love take root inside you, and you feel the freedom held within his little wings, and in this moment, with him so close, you can be you, vulnerable and safe.

~III

Venturing deeper into the forest, you consider its varied and fragrant aromas, the soil and the wood, offering a mingling of scents, some heavy, some sour, others light and sweet. Earthy smells, combining, both stale and fresh, young and mature.

A melting pot of oak, beech, spruce and pine, deciduous and conifer, where the rotting bark and branches of the fallen lay stale, damp and dry, half hidden between the standing, now overgrown with fern, bracken and rogue bramble.

Occasionally old wooden bones crunch and crack beneath your feet as your boots press into the ground, where with every step you're unsure if your feet will find the sprung sponge of fresh leaf mold, or the soft carpet of shed needles, else the uneven hardened ridges of half hidden roots.

And you've never cared for the paths of others, favoring to stumble between the trees, to be among these silent sentinels, beneath the interlocking arms of these watchful guardians, their limbs confidently stretching upwards, and outwards, the tips of their branches crisscrossing, laden with new leaves that bleed with dappled light.

Venturing deeper into the tangled heart of this primeval forest, your outline hidden among the umber-brown and the ancient, you listen closely, hearing their creaking confessions, feeling their wisdom and their age surround you. Steadily breathing, with a woody incense, their essence rising from centuries of cast down branches, snapping and rotting silently underfoot.

You reach out with your open hands, steadying yourself as you trip, feeling the variations in their outer armor and how firm they stand, alive against your palms and fingers, steady and sure, untroubled by your stumbling.

Their bark covered skins, some gnarled and wet with sequestered rain, where deep rough ridges, as dark as mud and dry cracked clay, are furred with fatted moss. While others are smooth, dusty and dry, powder coated in lichens of green and grey.

Such stubborn roots, stretching out, spread-eagle, snaking across the ground, twisting like the petrified remains of a slain hydra. The damp air bringing more acrid aromas, a mix of sour berries, tart fruits and nutty mushrooms, a gritty earth, broken open and wet with old rain. You've arrived at the very heart of the forest.

Overhead, a cloudless sky rests gently on the trees, a golden-azure-blue of unencumbered light bleeds through, stained with chlorophyll and dripping down in between the branches, mottling the trunks and roots with the brush of Georges Seurat.

Your eyes held open and failing to settle, as the light and shade plays before you, exchanging places, intimately dancing. Then catching your attention with a curious glinting. An intense hook of silver, causing your eyes to crease as they narrow, sharpening as they're drawn to the shimmering.

You step forward, incredulous yet intuitively suspicious, your eyes drawn downwards, keen as any magpie, to where at the base of a heavy trunk this reflected speck of light glints relentless and needle sharp, as if caught on a single sequin.

Stooping closer you crouch down between the gnarled, humped backs of two enormous roots and curiously consider what on earth might be the culprit for this trick of the light?

Sitting on your haunches, your fingers scratching at the soil, feeling the dark, damp dirt, cling underneath your nails, as you soft claw and scrape away the surface, revealing the first few links of a thin silver chain, a necklace you assume, your curiosity growing more and more excited as you carefully scrape away the earth.

~IV

Carefully clawing at the soil, your fingers diligently uncover more of the thin silver chain, slowly revealing a most delicate thread and wondering if one of its fine links might have broken to cause it to slip free from whomever was once wearing it?

How long might this chain be, you wonder, a bracelet, or a necklace? Your mind curiously begins to open these questions, your fingers playfully foraging, uncovering more and more. Growing excitedly keen to determine its unbroken length, this tiny chain seeming to continue regardless, at least for the time being, partially hidden beneath the soft earth.

Suddenly the chain snags, stubborn and resistant, and you scratch at the dirt, uncovering nothing but the decay of broken leaves and the fibrous follicles of fine haired veins and roots. Pinching the exposed chain between your thumb and forefinger you feel for the resistance, careful not to tug too hard, sensing its length must be buried deeper, threaded down into the soil.

You dig your fingers into the dirt and feel your nails scrape the soil, mindful of how many centuries it's been since we scratched the land with our bare hands. And there's something about the feel of the damp dirt now staining your skin, it feels thankfully real.

Beneath the loose and easy surface, the soil has become tight and compact, and so you look about you for something to help you quarry and finding a blunt stick your fingers work to grip the short tool and begin to gouge the ground.

A pocketknife would help, you can't help but think, better yet a garden trowel. And regardless you persist. Stabbing at the dirt, scratching at it, chiseling and chipping the pieces away.

Carving out a small, shallow crater, the silver chain resists, still stubborn, stuck and buried deep, unwilling or unable to yield to your insistence. You persevere, until having dug enough of a shallow you can reach in with your fingers, grip the earth and tear at it, breaking the ground away.

Repeating the routine, you resume with the stick, picking at the ground until you can claw your way deeper, and finally the stick hits against something hard.

Digging your fingers into the dirt you feel for the edge of the obstruction, a pendant perhaps, or maybe just an errant pebble. Determined, you scratch at the soil, and smile with an archaeological sense of satisfaction, discovering the knurled edges of something manmade, knowing your curiosity and your keenness of eye have led you to uncover something magical.

Brushing away the broken ground reveals a silver hoop set onto the cylindrical cap of small ornamental pendant, the last of the silver chain threaded through and ending in an unfastened clasp.

Dislodging the dirt from around its ornate edges, you tease the cylinder out into the open, unveiling its hardened glass body to the light. Then, using your thumb to smear away the damp grime, you reveal the smooth swerve of its clean curve, admiring this little vial, silver capped and delicately threaded on an unbroken length of silver chain, with a tiny scroll of paper rolled tightly inside.

~V

From within, your tummy crumples, butterflies erupting, a belly full of glittering monarchs and swallowtails all seeming to alight, simultaneous, their tiny wings beating, taking flight, setting in motion a chattering, shattering of emotions.

Fragments of treasure, a bric-a-brac mosaic of memories, they tumble through you, memories intermingled with hope, evoking a secret longing for an unspoken fantasy to form. The romantic brocade of your unfiltered imagination, daring you to dream.

A prophecy slowly unveiling, hidden within the tapestry of your unfolding imagination, thread-needle stitches of thought forming, weaving and combining, pairing the temptation of hope with a raw excitement, interlocking heartfelt fears, an innocent allegory, one that says if you dare chase the metaphor of this wild rabbit, you'll come home with none.

Your wrists begin tingling with an itch, a friction re-awoken, recalling soft black lengths of rope, silk threaded, their loops tightening, your arms extending, pulled high above and behind your head, stretching you taut across the bed. Your head tipping back, the cranial weight rolling off the edge, your long neck yielding, bending, throat open, the room turning upside down.

Eyes blinking, seeing a jigsaw of interlocking pieces, each forming impossible pictures, a collage rearranging, opening you to a flood of new interpretations, your mind awash with curiosity and the countless possibilities.

Remembering firm, purposeful hands and how they gripped into the meat and muscle of your adductors, confidently prizing you open wide, pushing the wet inked nib of a soft felt pen into the supple stretch of your skin, slowly writing a poetry of possessive promises, carefully scribing my words to the inside of each thigh. Your hands snagging against their bindings, begging to return their own loving touch, but denied.

Ash smudged onto your breast. Charred embers swept from the fire of our love making. Ritual and real. Your eyes closing as my mouth sucks with wanting the milk and blood gorging in your nipple. You see a tree. Hard of oak. In my hand, my knife, the blade bright and sharp. You worry it will hurt. I reassure you. Pushing the tip into the hard bark and peeling her open. Finding the soft flesh of her wet cambium. My words etched into her rings, eternal.

When only moments earlier our eyes were reconnecting, reflecting in the full length of your mirror. Your dress, forest green. Your ankles beautiful, bare and daring, strapped high in russet-red leather heels, evoking memories of our forever autumn. Your eyes igniting with my watching. Your fingers reaching to draw the hem, hoisting her slowly, gathering and revealing, daring me with all the more of you.

Those ropes tighten to the wrist, your head tipping further off the bed, the ceiling has become the floor, from where my cock now hangs, fattened and plump, a heavy length between my thighs. You lick your lips with wanting the feel of me moving in your mouth. Your knickers bleeding with the wet of waiting. Aching to feel their fabric peel away.

Your imagination unfolding from the inside-out, you're kneeling, crawling, collared to obey, feeling my love thicken, the slow rub of my girth growing firm inside your mouth. Sensing the heat in my pulse, quickened with your arousal, the warm throb of my phallus, hardening against your tongue, my veins bruising against the tender of your lips, as you drag and draw your love over me.

~VI

What is it with your husbands' eyes and when did they lose their luster? You wonder, pondering the question as you trudge back across the open fields, with the fringe of the forest edged in silhouette and slowly shrinking behind you.

Was the brightness ever really there, you muse, or did you just project it? Was the intensity you thought you saw in each cornea merely the reflection of your own inner light? Did his eyes simply serve to reflect your hidden hopes and dreams, rather than provide their own, much like a mirage, cruelly convincing.

Hope fading, like the light of this day, at first unnoticeable, imperceptible, but now creeping, eking out, a slow draining of color and heat. A fire dying, the air cooling, biting at your skin. You pull your coat tighter and plunge your hands into your pockets, the unearthed pendant gripped in your fist, your mind curious to know whatever words or promises you might find written on that tiny scroll of sequestered paper.

Walking home alone, absently pondering, a lonesome wondering, asking yourself when did their light first begin to fade and their truth become so trite and dull? The shift, so insidious, surreptitious, their promise fading from your sight and giving rise to a tide of emotional loneliness, both familiar and frightening.

Was what you thought you saw nothing more than what you needed to see? Survival. Instinctive and essential. Something so primitive and subconscious it can turn a desert haze into an oasis and trick the mind to just keep on going.

Fuck. The weight of the truth comes crashing down like a felled tree falling in the forest a few hundred yards behind you. Branches split and crack as they break under the weight of the fall. The earth tearing open, roots ripping as they fail to hold on.

Emotionally weakened by your own vulnerable confession you search for hope, symbolism and strength. Clutching in one hand the tiny glass vial, while in the other, the smooth round contours of your chosen stone. You grip them in your pockets and press on, your muddied boots trudging over the sodden open field, your eyes held to the outline of the houses on the horizon.

Under an empty sky, now bruising purple, the last of the sun dips deeper into the tree line behind you, shadows growing longer, stretching out ahead of you as you hasten to get home before the dark.

Remembering the ruin of the abbey, Bayham, her gables gone. Her arches ruined, yet defiant, her body broken, yet undeniably strong, her beauty weathered, aged and worn, and yet all the more essential.