So I’m still thinking over what I want to say in my new story. Still clueless about a title, although I have a couple of alternatives to ponder.  I’m drawn to old stuff, I’m drawn to the past.  I’m thinking of all the Summer of Love protest songs, but no, too recent, go further back.

I’m thinking rural, villagey, fields, water, trees.  I’m thinking of sorrow and haunting, of deeds never talked of.  I’m thinking of shame and sacrifice, I’m humming old pastoral songs and rhymes, of Scarborough Fair, of the occasional duplicitous nature of the minstrel, wandering, legitimately planting one foot in each camp.

I’m thinking of myths and legends, hills cloaked in mist, an unseen bird calling in the gloom, of the soft insinuating sound of the wind.  I’m thinking of that moment when you come home and you know someone else has been there, the house is guilty, complicit, hushed as if someone had been speaking and stopped when the door opened.

I’m thinking of The Waste Land (all-time No. 1 for me) by T S Eliot,   Snatches of it: “Speak to me.  Why do you never speak?” “What are you thinking?” “What is that noise?  The wind under the door.” “Do you know nothing?  Do you see nothing?” “I remember/Those are pearls that were his eyes.”

I am thinking, staring at the falling leaves, driven across the grass by a pushing wind, and I am thinking of long ago, of people who may not have existed, but who may come into being in my imagination.  I am thinking of a man at a window staring out, his mind working on things he cannot speak.

I’m thinking of a boy coming over the hill.  Of grass, green, long, dewy.  Of the sun, soft, golden, gentle as a mother’s hand, just touching his hair, his shoulder.

I remember.  It was all long ago and afar away.  I’ve said that a lot lately.

Gray’s Elegy “Now fades the glimmering landscape on the sight,/And all the air a solemn stillness holds.”