Last Light – the last day of the old year
As I set out to walk down to the woods, I realise that I am too late already to gain the high ground in time to watch the sun set. Then I remind myself that this isn’t about being in any particular vantage point. This isn’t about watching something happen. It is simply about being outside as the light leaves the year.
I remember the morning that dawned grey, but then cleared briefly. I remember how the sunrise kissed the high branches of the denuded poplars, gilding them in greeting. And then the clouds returned. It had been a mostly-grey day. It rained.
And then it stopped. The cloud started to break open, like an envelope with an invitation inside. This last light / first light idea was new to me, and it felt like the universe was saying: yes, come on, we’ll make it gentle for you this first time.
As I enter the woods, I catch occasional glances of a bright western sky. Unexpected. The yellow-white ball sinks and darts among black branches. I have to restrain myself from rushing towards a better vantage point, because I know I will not have time to reach it. I focus on the black of the trees against the glow…relishing the dark against the light, still shining with recent rain.
Emerging at boundary between Earlham Park and the UEA estate, I cross the bridge deciding to walk the river route on a whim. The better path has been closed to us. Ugly industrial site barriers block both ends and tell us that the path is closed. I wonder how long before the route on the other bank also gets blocked. That now not-allowed stretch was the life-saver for many of during lockdowns. The only people we spoke to for days were the few who also knew about it, and the flowers, and the dragonflies. Maybe the few were a few too many. Maybe they will allow us back when the land has rested. For now though, I take the opposite bank.
And am rewarded with the sky a-flame, and trees dancing before it.
I cross the Poo-sticks bridge and walk along the edge of The Broad. The reeds calligraph unreadable messages on the surface of the water. The campus buildings look more beautiful in reflection than they ever do in harsh daylight, one angled view turning the ziggurat into a ship cutting through some tree-lined backwater. I realise that in all my years at the university and ten-fold more of them since, I have never walked a sunset here.
The birds are settling in to roost. Across the water, a single grey heron shares its islet with three white egrets, all of them back-to-the-lake, hunkering against the damp cold that will surely rise.
The last of autumn lingers in willow and rosewood branches, golds and reds of stems. Then slowly the warmer colours depart, and all is black and silver, with only the slightest rose-gold on the water and in the high windows. Willow curtains hang between me and the mirror. Three mallard cut a trail through the molten surface. I watch the mist begin to rise.
Darkness does not fall. It seeps out from the banks and the branches. It leeches its way from the woodland over the water towards me. It reaches up into the sky from the dark fingers of winter trees.
Beyond the horizon, the sun has one last angry orange flare – or perhaps a farewell salute – before giving way and pulling the last of the light with it.
I am surprised to discover that it is not yet 5p.m. The pivot point of the year is still four hours away. I am pleased to have seen the old year out.
First Light – the first day of the new year
By the time I made it out of doors, colour was already seeping back into the world. The sky had melted from basalt to gunmetal. Robins had finished their first verses and were now allowing the gulls to screech the wake-up call to drowsy pigeons. Light was seeping in from somewhere, dripping steadily.
This first day of the turned year is still days away from the official holy days. It is a work-day, so as we edge towards 8 a.m. the suburban streets are busy with traffic, bright with head-lights, and frantic with all the things the drivers foolishly believe must be accomplished before the appointed hour. I wondered if the magi had felt the same as they were sourcing their gold and frankincense and myrrh and loading up their camels. Did they feel a deadline? A social pressure that they must arrive adorned in all their finery and no quarter given for the silent quarter of the desert they’d just traversed. Were appearances even then to be kept up?
Then I’m brought back into the moment, back to the silhouettes of trees, black against the paling cloud, ink spreading on parchment. In one there is an old nest awaiting new tenants, or maybe it’s a summer residence and its owners will return. In another, two drowsy pigeons sit and look towards an eastern sky that is as resolutely monochrome as the neighbouring lamppost.
The campus is quiet. The residences dark. I don’t know if the students are still actually required to vacate during the holidays as we were, but most will have gone home anyway. “Home” – I wonder how many of them will continue to use that word of the place they grew up, the place they left to come here. Forty years on, I still do. Accidentally.
In one kitchen there is a man, sitting in the otherwise deserted kitchen, fleeced and hatted, and huddled over his laptop. Something about his posture suggests he’d rather be somewhere else. Something about his expression suggests he actually wants to get this done first. Or maybe this City has already become 'home' to him.
I don’t climb the spoil-heap-hill, for fear of the wet-grass descent. I skirt around it, and walk down towards the Broad. Trees are shrouded. As I drop down towards the water, it seems as though the mist lifts, but in truth it is more likely that I slip underneath it.
Just as they were the last to hold the evening light, it seems the willows are first to catch the morning. They hold the sun colour. The sun itself has decided to pull the duvet back over its head and stay out of the damp cold of this winter morning.
I spoke about the way night does not fall. Similarly day does not break. It sneaks in like a teenager after a night on the town, hoping its late arrival won’t be noticed. Quietly. Making like it was there long before you noticed. The un-shining waters still manage to mirror the trees.
The night angler is packing up his rods.
I walk too nosily to catch full sight of the kingfisher before it takes flight and disappears beyond bankside branches.
A heron ignores the squawking of gulls, until I get too close. Then he swoops into the air.
Dark diving shapes in the water are not otter but shag.
Heading into the woods, I hear a sharp crack and jump round to see the oak cudgel that nearly cracked my skull. An innocent-looking squirrel scampers higher into the tree.
The path winds among juvenile oak and beech, their slender stems in ragged skirts and dresses of emerald moss that positively gleams, as though these arboreal young have only just risen from the primordial soup, and not yet sloughed their placental slime. Or like they’ve just staggered home from the party and their frocks haven’t quite survived.
Fanciful notions.
This is managed parkland. There has been timber cutting. Piles of fresh-cut logs seem to await collection…but given how this wood is managed, they may equally be allowed to simply lie there awaiting colonisation, by fungi, or ivy, or insect life. Taken down before they fell, but allowed to stay where they belong. Replenishing the ground.
I finish at the old oak, with its circle of logs, like pews for pilgrims – used as seats for students and artists and those who seek a little rest and shade. I start by looking at the shape of these saved branches, some strong and straight, others smooth and sinuous. What grows on them varies too. I feel drawn to walk the outer circle. Circumambulation is the English word Nepalese guides have learned for their prayer practice, so it occurs to me that if every wood is a labyrinth, then every isolated tree becomes a stupa.
Both call us to prayer, after their fashion.
This particular oak has deep wounds. Someonehas deep cut into it T H E 0 . The letters are spaced and unfinished. Was it Theo wanting his name remembered…or is it the beginning of T H E O A K ?
Something meant to be art? It feels like sacrilege, but the oak doesn’t seem to mind. It knows it will stand long after the cutters have faded from memory. It knows that this is another new year starting.
And so do I.
