Thursday 20 May 2010

Plum Lover Woodpecker Seahorse

I found a plum resting in a mint patch. I bent down over to take a bite. I didn’t use my hands.  The mint filled my senses. Instead of going in on the flesh of the plum with my teeth. I nudged it open with my tongue. It opened up and its sugary juice wet my mouth.  With my tongue I was searching for the stone. I couldn’t find it. With my fingers I spread open fruit to reveal the pit. Happy at reaching the heart of the fruit I handed it to my lover. He lapped up the sappy fruit until all that was left was the seed of a plum tree.

I was then given a box much like a match box although this box was made of wood rather than heavy paper. I slid open the box to find it filled with the fibre from the soap root plant. Nestled in the fibres were 3 miniature woodpeckers. These were a strange breed of woodpecker that was crossed with the sea horse so they had  tails that curled upward towards their breasts. They were no longer than a half inch long. I picked them up very carefully one by one and placed them in my palm to explore the miniatures. They were all dead. They had turned there skeletons inside out. Their feathers and skin still intact but lining the inside of the bones instead. They were dry and hollow. Somehow though the wood peckers had their plumage still on the top of their heads. They felt as though they would crumble under the slightest pressure. I placed them carefully back in their fibrous grave. I slid closed the box.

1 comment:

  1. Seahorses are the most gentle creature, the father seahorse cares for his children tenderly. Woodpeckers are innocent. They don't seem to realize how hard-headed they are. They combine a very gentle and sensitive nature with an insensitivity to driving their head at high speed into a piece of wood until it is racked with holes and crumbling to bits.

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