It was winter

It was winter. The mud was thick and soft and Anthony sank into it with each step. The giant, shattered cypress tree was in the corner of the paddock. The little, muddy-faced, hereford-angus calves were with their mothers at the other end of the paddock. The sky above the low silhouette of the sacred mountain was a rococo display of clouds and crepuscular light in all the shades of blue and grey and gold and lavender.

The new manager had got the windows in the office tinted: Tintpro uses only the best-quality window films. The difference is obvious. Protecting your investment has never been easier. Window tinting blocks 99% of harmful UV rays …

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In the cupboard: Healthy touch hand sanitizer KILLS 99.99% of germs without water.

Death. Death. Death and darkness. Ashes.

Father Hopkins, the unipolar, chronic depressive who died at the age of 44 with the words: ‘I am so happy. I am so happy. I loved my life’ knew that life is fire.

Nature is a Heraclitean fire …

Million-fuelled, nature’s bonfire burns on.

But quench her bonniest, dearest to her, her clearest-selved spark

Man, how fast his firedint, his mark on mind, is gone!

Both are in an unfathomable, all is in an enormous dark

Drowned. O pity and indignation! Manshape, that shone

Sheer off, disseveral, a star, death blots black out; not mark

Is any of him at all so stark

But vastness blurs and time beats level.

Anthony works and ‘feels the fell of dark not day’, his prayers ‘dead letters sent to him that lives alas away’ but here in the mud and the cold of winter dusk – ‘Glory be to God for dappled things’.

Barnaby McBryde