Burning Words

The beloved Malabar spinach is plumping up its luscious maroon coloured seed before winter. They are vivid against the azure sky, a welcome exotic green, glossy next to the more mat leaves of the Daubenton kale. Soon I’ll pot the Malabar up for over-wintering.

‘Burn Gaza’ were the words emblazoned in orange on the Pennant stone wall of the busy T junction. Times are vibrant. Times are lit up. ‘Reform’ is sprayed haphazardly on a gate post further down the road.

The sky, the angry flurry of the St George’s crosses, the online slanging matches, the light of the suddenly arrived autumn. It’s vivid.

I burrow in the gorge, an urgent need to wonder at gnarly roots, stumble around in the still dry clay, clamber over the chunky limestone - jagged, earthy grandparent teeth. I say sorry to the trees, feel safe in their shadows, and they know what I mean, without words.

Through the berried Hawthorn branches the Palestinian flag gleams on the flat rock face across the mighty Avon. Nothing burning, just there, silently present, high above the human kerfuffle.

The tea’s nice at Clifton Camp. The view puts me welcomely in my place amidst the huge vistas. Nice spot - well chosen Iron Age cousins, hi Dobunni kin. Hard not to feel the heat of the crackling, numerous beacon fires of times of yore.

Folk still gather by Clifton Suspension bridge; ash scattering, engagement making, end of finals celebrating. Today it’s polite freshers, getting shots for camera club, ginger on the rocky teeth in their new term trainers. An exuberant cluster of walkers with smart poles. Flurries of backpacked, sunbathing German and Japanese school children.

The gorge has long been a place of refuge, long before the bridge spanned these outcrops: city dwellers escaping plagues, monks seeking a summer residence, more recently folk with tents for homes. The Palestinian flag fits here.

Driving home last night I’m relieved to see that ‘Burn Gaza’ and ‘Reform,’ are gone, scrubbed from the ancient red sandstone which has seen it all. They may be gone, but I cannot stop sensing them. Still, I’m smugly relieved, ‘cos we don’t think that in this neighbourhood,’ hence the quick scrubbing clean. Relieved so I can stay busy in my own little bubble. Relieved not to dwell with the complexity of heart of the orange word’s creators.

I try it all on, anyway; kids going to makeshift schools there, kids walking past our house this morning in their roomy, ‘grow into it’ sized back to school uniforms. Folk queuing for bread in an aid queue there, folk waiting for Joe’s Bakery to open here. I can picture the burning, but don’t want to. For you, aerosol spray holder, how is it when the aerosol can is suddenly a flame thrower? How is that? What changes in you? Do you stay, ever more resolute to burn burn, or do you run? What do you stay for, what do you run from? Do you look the kids in the eyes, as you start the burning? What’s reflected in you and your eyes? How scorched are your hands?

My tea and I move seat, seeing if I can see anything new, gaze softening, facing south. I see mighty Dundry hill ahead, her plateau form a comfort from any angle. Swooping crows. A Jackdaw lands awkwardly on the planter a foot away, squawks and gives me a piercing, beady-eyed stare. I muse on what I see and what I fail to see. I know my longing not to fall into oh so easy dehumanising, othering. But not today, not with this much vibrancy and this much flammability.