Once, I held some time in my hand. Cupped in my palm, time became a repeated pattern: warp and weft steady as the river’s stream, un-rippled.

The tide flowed uniform and constant, just like the measured lines in the exercise book, destined for marks. Marks that may perch or somersault or hang precarious - but waited for correction.

 

On the stream the alder cones bounced like exclamations on the swell and gloss of the evening flow - merrily dark on the water - and half suspended like the ducklings in a hurry. In their tiered lightness the cones circled and skipped through the eddies until released - and away upstream.

 

On the river bank the tree blossomed softly in Spring, as always, until the flowers fell to carpet the earth. It stood strong and upright, firmly rooted: contained and sure within its structure.

 

Then the winds came, grew to storms and then to gales, swirling transparently. The russet leaves fell as the blossom had done, leaving skeletons that were caught as they dropped in punctuated bits.

 

The storms loosened the warp and weft that I held in my palm; the threads blew far away to be free.

And so some time belonged now to the bare winter tree.