Hope in the thaw

 

OLD GAMMON OR NEW EGGS?

The crows nest, silhouetted against the pale blue above the horizon, still sits firmly perched amid the uppermost branches of the tree before me, a few shrivelled brown leaves clinging to a pretence of a life, no buds yet apparent.  The nest is silent testimony to the industry and construction skills of the birds who built it, and who return year after year to renew their family.  Their time will come.

If I look down I see more green than white now.  There was a moderate snowfall a couple of days ago, covering the graveyard in brightness, setting the gravestones into sharp relief, making them more real and a stronger reminder of the life events behind those monuments to death.  It rained yesterday, the resultant slush then turned into a treacherous low-coefficient topography.  Today only sunshine which, despite the chilled air, steadily removes the watery blanket, only a few stubborn patches of shade putting up a fight.  It's a beautiful day, a day to walk and breathe and enjoy.

It's the First of January.  An arbitrary human marker in the natural flow of the seasons.  A marker of plans and promises, a time of recounting and foretelling.  But who dares make predictions for 2021 after the indecipherable potage that was 2020?  There are few certainties, but that does not mean that we are without hope.  Last night marked the end of one dark saga, our ties to the EU finally snapped after years of lies and bigotry and uncertainty.  The full implications of the Gammon Curtain will be made plain in the coming months.  

But the leaves will return to the naked branches I look out on, the green will flourish and the cemetery adopt it's summer character for yet another cycle of planetary movement.  Diamonds might be forever, but winter, and the gammonist regime, are not.  This was not a direction Scotland chose, but, like the crows, we can rebuild our nest and give birth to something new. 

 The crows will be with us again, there will be eggs, and new life and hungry mouths poking skywards.  They do not need other birds to tell them what to do.