The wind blows and shakes the rigid edifice with windows
rattling, and the boughs of the trees outside wave their new grown leaves in a
dance of elation. There is strain and
tension in the air, whilst the black birds launch themselves from the tops of
the trees into the path of the wind to be buffeted and thrown around like black
rags; playing with flight.
Into the unknown we step and walk the tightrope between fear
and excitement, acknowledging that control is an illusion and decisions are
made with very little understanding of any outcome. The road behind has gone and the road ahead
stretches out like some meandering river and we are mesmerised by the mirage in
the distance, ignoring what lies beyond the hedgerows either side of us. We
want someone to hold us, something to guide us, we crave certainty and
steadfastly turn our gaze away from that one thing that defines our lives – the
fact that we have an ending.
Here in the UK it is the time of the General Election, where
the tired old body of a democracy that is anything but democratic receives its
regular blood transfusion so that it might continue to exist. So the promises are made that are
transparently impossible to keep, and truth seems to have taken a holiday far
away and left us to get on with it. We
are bombarded with reasons to hate; to hate those two enemies of the civilised
world – the poor and the foreigner. We
are exhorted to the level of greed of the politician and the self-aggrandising
rich, so that the central virtue of society is now crystallised in
materialistic aspiration, and elevated to the highest form of motivation in our
lives. The heavy handed conditioning
continues to hold is to this central fact that success is to be striven for and
universally admired, whilst failure is to be avoided at all costs and even its
very existence denied. The consequence
of this is the ever widening and deepening stinking river of corruption.
Now the votes are cast and the smiling complacency of the
winners is matched only by the abject demeanour of those that have lost. And nothing has changed.
Wild winds have given way to a chill breeze and branches
move against the steel grey sky. Spring is
heard through the song of birds; the greens are deep and bright and there is
new growth everywhere. The year is
turning, leaving behind the old and dying, seeking to replace and renew. All the talk, words spoken and written cannot
describe this movement for it is life itself.
And all the inventions and ideas of humankind are lost in this
enveloping green, leaving the bare bones of the fallen tree in a bleached
brown-grey submission to Spring: to played on by lambs, climbed by children and
find a new existence as the home for so many insects. In hope we look for answers, in desperation all
we can do is look.
