Before the road gravels, there are only the sounds of timber swollen from the rain. Blackened in places, where I have become as attached as my own shadow has. A length of rope hangs beside it, stiff and coarse, tapping the wood. 

And each lime tree, linden, apple bough, oaken leaf, extending a palm, a branch, arms slack, the shelter of wayfarers, yet pine for human touch.

The stone sits to slake his thirst in the same rivulet that fills and empties herself, inhaling between the gap of narrowing rivers and blue-grey oyster eyes. A blight upon the brow of the morning that continues in layers. 
 
The air brewed and spat forth a pearl that sits on the left side of my ear, my beaten ears. The reeds scrub the concrete. A distant engine like washboards choppy, muscular and a relentless circling. Rust quietly working against the answering gull.
 
The ditchwater carries fragments of pestled foam, clouded and now foul with idleness, through hedgerow and briar. Bladderwrack dries against the stone wall and shrinking, a fainting crackle, salt whitening edges. 
 
A mussel shell lies amongst the shingle like a vague star spilled into stellar drift.