January breathes with a rhythm of storm and ice.

 

radiant grey

lichen

rose

ice white

amber

emerald

coal

storm blue

crimson

gold

 

 

 

1st

River wind.

Blue deep starlit night.

Owls call.

Moon bright.

Silver branches tangle the darkness.

 

 

 2nd

Splintered hedges, cut to ragged geometry

rise up along the curve of the hill —

holding back a green rush of fields.

 

The distant hills towards the sea are a radiant spilt ink.

Clouds in banners are blue stained and carved grey.

 

 

 3rd

Lilac woodsmoke drifts an unhurried curl among the trees.

At the lane’s edge, hazel buds are pale stars.

 

 4th

Torn hedges. Raw lines.

Stark cold.

The earth brown and pared to an etching.

 5th

Still, grey fields.

Gold fire lights the line of the hill.

A rose-bronze haze of hazel above the lane.

 

 

6th

Blue clarity.

An intake of glad breath.

 

 

 7th

A storm of rain has charged past,

resounding the valley.

 

And now,

A fine parchment brightness.

Yellow glaze.

Not the yellow of daisy middles or lemons

but the clean, translucent yellow of light itself —

an edge of flame.

 

Raindrops, abandoned, dazzle the tips of leaves and twigs.

The song of the trailing air is insistent, hollow.

A note drawn by the disappearing storm.

The green soaked land is steady now and

quiet.                                                                                                     

 

 

 8th

A rainbow in a dark stained sky.

Amber hazel, drenched with rain and pale glossy light.

 

 

 9th

I walked along the lane through the stark lines of empty hawthorn,

breathing in the gentle peace of the day.

Raindrops, shaken glass from a bright thickets in the early light.

 

 

 10th

Quiet valley.

Solemn woods. Ink shadowed.

Gold flares the trees, paling into blue above the clouds.

 

11th

A blackened soulful night.

Wind a river through the trees, breathing alive the boughs in a rush of darkness.

 

The morning, a clear sunrise.

Rose and gold in a grey sky.

 

 

 12th

A glowing day.

Blue and purple shadowed woods.

Blackbird — elegant and vibrant,

his clear silhouette an icon

among the branches.

 

 13th

A rushing wind, silver with rain.

Bright glancing light on blowing branches.

Rich river bank green.

Blue grey sky.

 14th

Quiet and cold.

Rooks turn spirals, languid in a stone sky.

 

 

 15th

Sun sharpened branches, etched black over icy transparence.

 

 

16th

A white shining day —

glass bright with frost.

 

Blue and lilac shadows fall patterned over the fields.

Bronze amber glow of earth and branches.

 

 

 17th

The sky a cornflower blue caught in an elegance of beech.

 

 

18th

Luminous haze of sunshine and long blue shadows.

Rising wind and scent of snow.                                                                                                        

19th

Bare Winter.

 

20th

Ember distilling into lit grey radiance.

Ice polishes the lane.

A robin sings, high in the branches, his breast a stray flame from the blaze of sky.

 

 

 21st

Woodsmoke chill air.

Beech alight with gold bronze in the cold blue.

Gauzy, silvered threads of spiderwebs glint and disappear.

 

 

 22nd

Rose gilded morning.

Fine traced lines of hazel blowing in the wind

23rd

A green day.

Cold. New.

Solemn evergreens, cavernous and stately in the stillness.

Willows smoulder crimson against the cool blue mist of the woods.

 24th

Cold snow air.

Indigo shadowed woods, bronze tipped.

Vivid green moss cut through by snowdrops in white sentry.

 

 

25th

Blue fir. Green Shadow.

Stirring in the wind.

 

 

 26th

Long, smoke blue shadows over the lit green of the valley.

The stream gathers in the dip of the field,

a pool of silver and sky —

it brims into a cold clear rush under the trees and over the lane.

 

 

 27th

Hills luminous — dissolved into violet hover and darkness.

The sky ablaze with deepening orange and rose.

 

 

28th

A rainbow in dark glimmering air was swept away in a wild blizzard.

A bold light followed, edging the clouds with gold.

 

 

 29th

A jewel bright morning.

Gathering into a luminous gold and blue haze —

sketched with black trees.

 

 

30th

A still weighted grey.

Charged with cold and heavy with peace.

The earth drenched and sodden.

Stone and grass glossed with wet.

 

 31st

Quiet simplicity and cold.

Grey and umber unlit branches.

Still and poised in the wrap of winter.