HEARTSNATCHER

Today the valley is filled with sounds: the sound of birdsong - sparrows crowd on the walnut tree behind the dogs' run and sing their tiny hearts out; the river growls and shushes its way over the gravelled, pebbled bed towards; a sea that roars its presence in a silent world. Behind all this, if you listen carefully, assiduously, you can hear the pools of rainwater seeping, soaking, into the saturated ground as it leeches its load into the river too. It has stopped raining.

Buckets and bins, overflowing yesterday, are stable now. Still full but no longer filling; no longer flowing. All is somehow still on the surface but all of the action is happening beneath that surface now. Doors have swollen in their jambs making closing them difficult and noisy, jerky and imperfect. A world swollen not with fruitfulness but rain. Too much rain, everything too wet and no wind to help dry it. No sun to warm it.

The sky, for the first time in days has changed from solid white or grey to a streaked promising, pregnant, augury. Hearts, ours and not just those of the little sparrows, have risen. Humour and optimism are once more possible. The future is on its way.