Tales from the edge of the morning sky
535 episodes - English - Latest episode: 21 days ago -A selection of stories and tales, mainly about the natural world, our place in it, as well as stories about everyday people who change their lives and others by being different or perhaps by being too much the same
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Episodes
Even if…
March 26, 2024 19:00 - 41 seconds - 517 KBEven if I… Even if the sun, I feel were blind, I would like to hold your face in the quiet of my hands, and trace just once, my fingers upon the tributaries and streams, of the life that has become the beautiful you, to feel a thousand stories, journeys and emotions, joining a stream, a flow, of stars, to a river of journeys, that I cherish in wonder that I feel, in the music of living and life, that is born in me with you. Feel fre...
Spring (March)
March 09, 2024 17:00 - 24 seconds - 393 KBFor if there is, truly, a Spring in winter let me drink then, deeply of your beautiful eyes to see the dawn of morning blue, for laughter is the sunlight of March that rises, beautifully in the blossom of life that is simply being and walking, the path with you. Feel free to contact me. Be nice to know who my audience is and perhaps you can suggest some further topics or themes for my writing! And do give me feedback! [email protected]
She(3) ‘They’
March 05, 2024 17:00 - 2 minutes - 1.87 MBThey He pulled. Felt her hand in his. Remembering her taste. Her smell. The way her body cleaved into his. His into hers. Mustiness. Earth. Wonder. Urgency. The earth crumbled around him. It matted his arms, legs and lower back. His hair. His beard. He sat up. Felt the dull ache, the throb of life to be given fill his awakening being with her. To her. She could see him now. Lifting himself out of sleep. His own dream wrapped around him. She released his hand, reached over and k...
A February Afternoon
February 18, 2024 13:00 - 31 seconds - 397 KBFebruary Afternoon The sun sets long shadows, cast the distance upon the broken garden wall But amongst the cracks, the silence, beneath the settling dusk of late afternoon A blackbird sings, his voice catching my tears one by one as softly, gently the rain begins to fall. Feel free to contact me. Be nice to know who my audience is and perhaps you can suggest some further topics or themes for my writing! And do give me feedback! [email protected]
She (2)
February 05, 2024 16:00 - 2 minutes - 1.69 MBS(he) He was awakening. The stiffness of sleep held him tight within its arms. The winter stars were wrapped in sheathes of time about his legs and lower body. From somewhere outside of himself he could feel a growing sense of urgency. A warmth. A remembering. He needed to remember. Wanted to remember. But a great fog of darkness still held him. Whispered to him. Wanted him to remain within it. Somewhere. Somewhere. ‘Here.Here.’ He could sense his own voice outside of himself. A movement ...
She (1)
January 26, 2024 16:00 - 2 minutes - 1.57 MBShe (1) She was not sure when it started. A cold day perhaps. Long shadows. Early evening. She could feel in her memories the wind blow cool from the mountains around the valley. A shiver of possibilities across the lengthening dusk. Maybe it was then. When the first stars blinked across the skies, the first street lights flickered and then failed. ‘Yes. Perhaps it was then,’ she thought to herself. She closed her eyes. Lay still and quiet. Felt once again, the first time it touched her....
A Sleepy Summer’s Afternoon
January 13, 2024 12:00 - 2 minutes - 1.72 MBA Sleepy Summer Afternoon It’s a lazy, sleepy afternoon, the villages are empty, flowers, in colours of summer, curtsy and nod in the baking sunlight, radiating off walls and shimmering rooftops, and, as if uplifted, a single buzzard flies and swoops overhead. It’s so warm, the distance is translated, from far and away, to the here and now: a band of light above the winding road, the asphalt, soft, under the lens of light, a magnifying glass ...
Fleet ‘Epilogue’
January 03, 2024 17:00 - 4 minutes - 2.91 MBShe could see their forms shiver and shimmy. She stepped closer. Her self belief was not unsurprised by what she was seeing: two people bound together by time, place-and not a little love. The wind whispered again, hushing her doubts aside as she stepped closer towards them. She could see through their opaqueness: the edge of the lagoon, and the grey-blue waters still and quiet under a fresh western sky. Beyond, and stretching behind them, was the beach itself, like a great arm separating ...
Fleet ‘The path was small…’
December 10, 2023 14:00 - 2 minutes - 1.94 MBShe turned and walked back from the beach. Everyone had long since gone. The storm had passed, the skies were clear once again, and the wind had settled into restful sighs across the silver birches. The trees were still and yet crooked, bent and twisted with their boughs and branches in repose after surviving another bout with the seasonal storms that raced up this battered coast. The path was small, she had not taken the tourist one, the direct route, instead she followed the sunken one...
Fleet ‘Time will tell’
December 08, 2023 15:00 - 2 minutes - 1.78 MBHe paused, scratched his head with his pen, as if to recall something he had forgotten ‘…and,’ he stuttered,‘something has turned up at the church, over the last few months, we’ve had reports of moving lights at night. Youths probably, come down from the caravan park, drinking, playing ghosts, larking around.’ She turned fully and looked him directly in the face. ‘He is young, almost too young to keep the law, never mind enforce it,’ she thought to herself ‘Is there a connection? Betwe...
Kent
December 03, 2023 16:00 - 35 seconds - 445 KBKent The cherry blossom fell, along the garden paths, and upon others, that lay, still, quiet and hidden, among the thickening shadows, beneath the stretching hands of trees. For he walked, slowly now, remembering footsteps of those who walked with him, upon evenings, like this one, warmth in the heart of sunlight, his treasure of life this time, and memories Feel free to contact me. Be nice to know who my audience is and perhaps you can sugge...
A Fist of Leaves
November 26, 2023 15:00 - 1 minute - 963 KBA fist of leaves For is not time dawn itself? Having shaken the stars from a now empty sky, she now races to catch the night before the call of day, dancing, skipping, gathering the shadows fleeing before her catch, her catch gathered in a bag, in fists of leaves and abandoned trees, the rooftops reflect and mirror the first touch of sunlight, the slow rise of breakfast fires, the first call and echo of the last of black and birds, singing loud and brightly, the night reclining to a lullin...
Fleet ‘The Key.’
November 24, 2023 17:00 - 2 minutes - 1.64 MBThe helicopter flew low, hovering above the breaking tide. The ship was a bleached skeleton of former seaworthiness. Fragments of sail and broken masts, collapsed and shattered, lay at broken angles and forgotten shapes, upon the seaweed and barnacle encrusted former deck. The press had long since left. Leaving a sense of puzzlement and cheapness amongst the temporary beach combers. They grouped and haggled along the retreating tide, looking for meaning and hidden discoveries in the centuri...
The Wasp
November 21, 2023 16:00 - 1 minute - 1.05 MBThe Wasp It’s colder now, wings heavy, skies too grey for warmth life, and blossom, and still the wasp moves, struggling in spluttering steps across the broken stones. The fruits have fallen, time and leaf lie together, upon the frozen, naked ground. And though summer has passed away, and the dark is growing, through the clouded broken glass, I can still see the garden, the empty hands of abandoned trees, the colours of spring, piled amongst rope, recognition and roots. The broken fence ...
No War
November 18, 2023 17:00 - 25 seconds - 397 KBWar is and coming, a thunder-scratch across humanity’s eye Evil rises, the black hooded horror of blindness an endless serpent swallowing, screaming death no more Ravens circle, life. ravenously Feel free to contact me. Be nice to know who my audience is and perhaps you can suggest some further topics or themes for my writing! And do give me feedback! [email protected]
The Meadow
November 16, 2023 15:00 - 28 seconds - 398 KBThe Meadow A meadow full of memories, the faded colours of summer, rest upon the skeletal hands and leaves, for summer whispers to autumn: ‘For now is here, take this, my time away, for I wish not yet for Spring, for fall and sleep I must, to dream again come May.’ Feel free to contact me. Be nice to know who my audience is and perhaps you can suggest some further topics or themes for my writing! And do give me feedback! [email protected]
Fleet ‘A Receding Tide.’
November 03, 2023 15:00 - 2 minutes - 1.88 MBHere He somehow felt the woman sag aside him. Heard a sigh of incredulity and the dull low growl of the two dogs, as he himself turned and looked for himself in the direction of the storm. Then ‘It is done,’ Emily whispered, exhausted into his ear. Her voice as far away as the time he’d left behind.’The rest will come back upon the next tide- and then all will be counted upon the last of waves.’ She lowered her head still further and sobbed against his chest. Here There was a ship. Wit...
This is a place…
October 31, 2023 08:00 - 1 minute - 1.17 MBThis is a place of slow time, with a sky that reaches above a sudden, empty wind, with the hidden stars, turning beacons of light upon eons of eternity, above the pointing fingers of an ancient forest, and below, amongst the leaves and acorns, amongst the lengthening shadows of the last emptiness of summer days, there lies a small cup of life and this time, this now, is placed upon the cut branches of a broken tree. The cup is made out of wood, and yet it is transparent somehow, and through ...
Six Bells ( For October)
October 21, 2023 13:00 - 2 minutes - 1.92 MBSix bells It was upon the six bells tolling across the darkness that opened the day with a yawn, October stretched, shook, and chased the light rain off his skin. It was cooler now. He passed his invisible hands through the pools of shimmering stars, sprinkling their light across his earth stained face, rubbed their promises of frost and early snow through his branches and wrinkles that creased the fields in lines and furrows, under the lightening dawn. The sun was late. He blew into...
Falling
October 20, 2023 04:00 - 45 seconds - 603 KBFalling With warm winds that bring each autumn, summer’s last breath falls across the fields, October lies, fallow, beneath the stars as gently, slowly, the season turns and bids farewell, with winter’s call to yield. For above and beyond the empty hands, the crowning grace of trees, a pale moon full, across the hidden the skies, pulls the shadows behind the last of daylight, turning life to greys and the changing colours, of forgotten s...
Suddenly (Autumn)
October 15, 2023 15:00 - 45 seconds - 617 KBSuddenly (Autumn) All of a sudden, summer, picked up his bags of sun and flowers, and left along the garden path, beneath the blustery shadows of a billowing emptying, racing sky. He turned to the hidden brook and glanced sadly at the rushing memories of what was, to what might have been. And in the places between the two, he smiled to himself, and knowing far better, he shrugged at his reflection, pulled his cloak of low autumnal light tightly around him, and left the earth to shadows an...
Fleet ‘Questioning’
October 14, 2023 15:00 - 3 minutes - 2.23 MBShe had called the emergency services. ‘A drowning,‘ she had explained when the ambulances arrived. This after the police car and officers arrived along the narrow one-sided lane, that led past the sunken church to the meadows, and then along the narrow pathway to the stretching curve of beach. She had explained the clothes, the abandoned shoes, the splash that had rippled in a sudden tearing of waves across what had now become an uneasy silence. They had brought a sniffer dog that had ta...
October Fields
October 09, 2023 15:00 - 51 seconds - 643 KBOctober fields before the fall, ploughed deep and long ‘afore winters call, for the skies are wrapped in a thousand stars, of spring and time soon to be, and remembered, in the stillness and passing of hurrying hours beside the silent waves and restless sea. And so to leave this month of days, the door, the windows open, the trees afire, in this dawn, the first, of winter to become, and wander the lanes alone and silent beside the moon, ...
Fleet ‘To see, if any, are still alive.’
September 16, 2023 15:00 - 1 minute - 1.35 MBBarrels and kegs, bobbed in a dispersed crowd of debris. The winds howled and raged, the sky stripped and torn, as the rising moon seemed to race across the beaches like ships overhead. They were knee deep in the waters that frothed and foamed around them. There were fewer cries of help now, the rocks just off shore, jagged and razor like, had done their worst. Men lay on the beach, dead or exhausted, bedraggled and bundled, like sacks of stones, flesh and sand. Some lived, some were dead...
Fleet ‘The Edge of the Fields.’
September 11, 2023 15:00 - 1 minute - 1.14 MBThe dog pulled on her line, her owner called her back, but she pulled insistently towards the pile of clothes on the narrow footpath. She walked along the edge of the fields most days, enjoying the changing weather, the patterned skies, the whisper of distant waves and the shining light of the sea. ‘What is it? What is it?’ She implored Cassie, as she pulled harder this time, her lead as taught and tense as her tail. The dog whined. Then she saw the clothes. A distant, dull splash caught h...
Fleet ‘Focus’
September 08, 2023 04:00 - 1 minute - 1 MBShe turned and for what seemed like an eternity she looked through him, the ghost of himself, back to the other place and time from where he thought he was from. He could feel her bringing him into focus. He gaze like a lens bringing firmness and purpose to his own. Slowly, so slowly it seemed, her eyes recognised him. The distance of place and time fell away. He was with her.At last by her side. She beckoned to him. Her face turning from recognition, to hope, then madness, just as the st...
Fleet ‘Emily!’
September 03, 2023 15:00 - 2 minutes - 1.49 MBShe was on her knees now as he swam the last yards to the shore. He was exhausted, heavy and felt as much a part of the elements as he was within himself. ‘Perhaps,’ he thought out loud, ‘I was always here. Always now,’ he swallowed water, choked, the brackish salty water tasted like the metallic skies that raced over head. Emily’s screaming pulled him from his introspection, and his focus wavered as the remaining waters pulled him towards the berm. ‘No! No!’ She screamed as the ship towe...
Fleet ‘Choices in the Storm’
August 30, 2023 15:00 - 2 minutes - 1.49 MBAgain, he had the choice. And this time he stepped over himself. Flicking off his shoes, tearing his shirt off, releasing his trousers to the sand at his feet he ran and plunged deep into the beckoning waters. The water was surprisingly warm, but heavy and still. The thickness of it made him struggle at first until he stopped fighting. A crowd of birds had flown into the sky as his dive had cut the sky reflected waters into ribbons and ripples of storm and cloud. Overhead the wind whipped ...
Fleet ‘The Blinking of Shadows’
August 27, 2023 15:00 - 2 minutes - 1.73 MBThe mizzen, main and foremasts pointed like crooked fingers to a moon that had risen in bouts of blindness, high ahead, in the rush of clouds, ragged and broken, tearing in blinks of shadow, darkness, and fleeting moments of broken light. The roar of sea and sky flung the silence that they shared into the beaten grass beneath their feet. They were standing now. Supporting each other, leaning almost horizontally into the blast. It was happening again. He couldn’t hold her. She slipped out o...
Fleet ‘The Broken Sea’
August 24, 2023 16:00 - 1 minute - 1.14 MB‘John, John,’ she whispered again, ‘Are we there yet?’ He turned and looked out across the fleet, beyond the skies and to the edge of his world. Quietly he whispered back ‘Almost my love, almost, take me back, take me back to the storm once again. And all at once, the sky seemed to seethe and darken. As if the world had been shaken, held in the grasp of ferocious hands, the view shattered into thunderous rain. There was no difference between the clash and roar of the bar of rounded st...
Fleet ‘Am I still real for you?’
August 23, 2023 04:00 - 2 minutes - 1.65 MBHe felt her hand press his own. Reassurance. Affirmation. He never really knew. Each time anew. The grass was over grown again. Few people came here. Even fewer knew the place as he did. The immense skies, a constant theatre of changing clouds, above the great moving silence of the sea. And behind the great berm, the haven for all with wings and calling, the lagoon of calm and unruffled waters that mirrored the beauty of the place. They stepped over the low, now dry, run of the spring, th...
The Fleet
August 19, 2023 15:00 - 1 minute - 1.21 MBFleet Almost hidden. Along the path, beside the cottages, parallel to the cobbled road, the sunken old church was hidden from view. The bend in the road took most drivers, walkers, and the occasional cyclist, past the new church to the camping and caravan park that huddled, straggling in knots along the thin strip of land that separated the folding waves of the fields from the lagoon, the shifting shingle of the bar, and beyond, the empty skies and further still, the sullen sea. They walke...
Tonight (Time and Distance)
August 15, 2023 15:00 - 1 minute - 1.08 MBTonight (Time and Distance) It’s windy tonight. The telegraph wires rolling under the skies, skimming clouds, racing inland from the sunsetting west. And the road winds, grey in haste and evening black, a distant car growls and blinks, hurrying homeward before the hiss and blow of the last of showers. For above, there is a racing moon behind the skies, the silence of stars, the cusp of shattered hillsides, the end of summer, slipping into August. For the end of days still holds, and ...
Six bells-a-chiming
July 25, 2023 10:00 - 1 minute - 831 KBSix bells Six bells, the first call to morning, I’d never believe it was so still and July, for the early morning is with mist and wreathes of hanging clouds, the summer heat has simply gone, slipped under the warning bark of crows, for the earth is wet, with furrows of running water, like afterthoughts, forgotten thoughts, empty thoughts, the runnels of memories, the collapsing dreaming of the lost and drowning of spring, and although t...
Storm (July 4th)
July 18, 2023 19:00 - 1 minute - 965 KBStorm It’s here, ominous, the sky deepening, the black dusk in dark fists of clouds, thickening blindly, overhead. Everything is still, waiting, a great thirst covers the brittle, dry, and empty earth, even the birds have stopped singing, hidden in the forest, seemingly empty of life, and silent in the hushed quiet of a million voices closed, in the futile grasp of leaves, there’s a pressing, a weight of heaviness, the sky pushing, dow...
She Walked (Summer)
July 08, 2023 16:00 - 23 seconds - 299 KBShe walked She walked along the sidewalk in the early morning of December, beautiful through the dull, the dark and grey, her face a picture of springtime, the promise of summer who walked beside her, never having gone away. Feel free to contact me. Be nice to know who my audience is and perhaps you can suggest some further topics or themes for my writing! And do give me feedback! [email protected]
Broken Sky
June 26, 2023 16:00 - 17 seconds - 256 KBBroken Sky Lightning bolts the rattle battle of thunder storms spectacular castles, and cathedral clouds, Another day to end. Feel free to contact me. Be nice to know who my audience is and perhaps you can suggest some further topics or themes for my writing! And do give me feedback! [email protected]
Blind
June 24, 2023 16:00 - 5 minutes - 3.98 MBBlind Immaculate,fresh sneakers, perfectly shaved, slicked back hair, crisply ironed shirt- only the cane and the way he felt his way on board the now familiar 207 bus, made it clear to anyone who was watching. His partner helped him: as he lightly touched her elbow she guided him up the steps, and to the outside front seat, slightly to the right but behind the driver. She sat next to him, by the window, talking about anything that passed as the bus weaved it’s way through traffic, paused a...
Cobalt Moon
June 22, 2023 16:00 - 1 minute - 876 KBCobalt Moon. I stepped onto the terrace, the still and silent evening wrapped in grey echoing the church bells that chimed in steps and distances across the deepening shadows thickening into the emptiness, the last breath of Spring, the falling memories and blossom of the passing month of May, And hidden in the hush, the green, the places where the wind left and went away, I saw the footsteps of morning, across the dew drops glistening upon the freshly mown garden lawn, I followed them with...
A Summer Afternoon
June 19, 2023 15:00 - 2 minutes - 1.66 MBSleepy Summer Afternoon It’s a lazy, sleepy afternoon, the villages are empty, flowers, in colours of summer, curtsy and nod in the baking sunlight, radiating off walls and shimmering rooftops, and, as if uplifted, a single buzzard flies and swoops overhead. It’s so warm, the distance is translated, from far and away, to the here and now: a band of light above the winding road, the asphalt, soft, under the lens of light, a magnifyi...
Awakening
June 16, 2023 16:00 - 24 seconds - 390 KBAwakening Awakening hints of morning, the coming of heat through the thinning morning cloak of cloud, steel of sky, and springtime grey, above high upon the Maple sings the blackbird lifting the dawn of life and light, this day. Feel free to contact me. Be nice to know who my audience is and perhaps you can suggest some further topics or themes for my writing! And do give me feedback! [email protected]
Thunder Rain
June 15, 2023 16:00 - 33 seconds - 425 KBThunder Rain I heard the thunder last night, deep growls, and dragons like flames, hidden, in the shattered darkness, splitting the sky into splinters of storm, and light, I looked out through the window, my face a shadow, facing myself outside of myself, and saw the silhouettes of rooftops, the shocks and silences of trees standing, in the dead of night. Feel free to contact me. Be nice to know who my audience is and perhaps you can sugg...
Moon, Kite and Wings
June 13, 2023 15:00 - 1 minute - 908 KBMoon, Kite and Wings And there above the roof of heaven split, the scratch and travel of a different kind, aloft in modern times, with pencil wings, silver fuselage, streaking in white and across the evening sky, and behind the slow, silver dark of a passing summer moon, in phases removed and reflected, reaching behind the temporary the here and now, the turn of months like chapters, she rose magnificent her wings stretching, upon the las...
For the briefest of Summer moments
June 04, 2023 15:00 - 1 minute - 1.02 MBFor the briefest of moments For the briefest of moments, the emerald green was lit, by an opening door, Spring walked from the west, bathed in silence, light and of summer gold, the trees, their leaves, each of the millions of blades and grass, lit in fires of incandescence, as she stepped from the edge of the evening sky, and walked through the shadows, the last retreat the gathering memories of winter, of dark and of dusk, in her hands...
Sounds of Summer
May 27, 2023 16:00 - 42 seconds - 530 KBSounds of… Sounds of cicadas, the soft gentle fall, of a summers day, the last blackbirds singing, closing the afterglow, a last tractor mowing the meadows, the flutter of swallows, the laughter of neighbours, the perfume of blossoms, the smell of hay, and above the clouds, incandescence, opalescence, the yellow smudge of an evening sun, the day ends where it begins, in invisibility the color of birdsong, the heavens in s...
Farewell (winter)
May 14, 2023 15:00 - 37 seconds - 481 KBI only noticed, the grey of sky, the steel of cloud, the fractured light, in the hours that chimed and called upon the city rooftops, their echoes of time, the closing of yesterday, for the trees were silhouetted, the woodland, in knots and fists, of gales, of night and rages of wind, when she simply turned turned to rain and fell upon the silence and softly sadly, just walked away. Feel free to contact me. Be nice to know who my audienc...
High Rain
May 13, 2023 17:00 - 48 seconds - 577 KBHigh Rain Something about the morning, rain from the west across the sullen skies, seems November has returned, summer’s lost her way, hiding behind the clouds, blushing behind the dawn, hiding her modesty, closing her eyes. For below the fields stand empty, along the churning river, the trees weigh, heavily with raindrops, and tapestries of springtime in flourishes and waterfalls of green, the country lanes, long, turning blindly, dist...
Statue
May 11, 2023 15:00 - 56 seconds - 688 KBStatue Silver shadows, fleetingly in wings, lifting grey and morning across the sullen steel and silhouetted sky, And above the call of rooks, above the church and tower, block and stone, belief and faith, turning time, in hidden chimes and the passing moments of hurrying hours, there stands a figure, cast in gold and bronze, poised in grace, light and dawn, arms outspread, head and shoulders, westwards facing, a smile, a greeting to all...
Signs and Butterflies
May 07, 2023 11:00 - 44 seconds - 537 KBSign and Butterflies I saw two teenagers, deaf to the rush of the city, and the hurrying world around them, smiling they were, and standing together as if sharing the early morning sky of summer and blue, they signed in poetries of sunlight, love, and friendship walking together, dawning air, fresh and new, their hands and fingers, creating and speaking silences invisible in blossoms and butterflies, dancing in patterns and wingspa...
Fog (In Spring)
May 04, 2023 15:00 - 42 seconds - 589 KBFog (In Spring) Feels like November, without the darkness, without empty leaves and debris fall, no wind, no winter, no hidden stars, just the emptiness of sky and call, of rooks and cries, for about the church and tower, the peel of bells, the lifting dark and dawning grey, spring lies, hidden, in blossom, in flowers, summer lifting life for the choir of light, that begins today. Feel free to contact me. Be nice to know who my audience is and...