Dolphin Address 46
November 28th 2005
Honey could easily slip through the gate, but she patiently waits until I open it. She lives in black and white bright lightning and she knows all the shortcuts to the easy ways. She's got golden brown milk chocolate polka dots over the inside of her courageous eyes. Her nostrils winging at any passing odour.
On the dots, three sheep with power wound horny crowns are having a bite, a chew and a swallow at the rock&rollhay. The others pop up out of dips on approach. Five to go.
Sheep are sharp on shelter. They meticulously inspect and select, but popularity ends when it is run muddy. They live on seven tiny meadows, separated by walls that half and sometimes wholly overgrow by bushes and trees. The walls, opened by their traffic, define a network of short cuts across slippery stones to other worlds with cosy corners and stunning views. A whole flock disappears through them in seconds. They are shy and evasive and outsmart me when I want to count them.
Can't help my self, gotto go to the water. Filled partly with rain, partly with water from a well a 'Turloch' echoes in the valley. Most trees dress in ivy, some like a shirt, others in the thick winter coat of death. Far away cattle is lowing, hoarse, with breaking voice and in heavy pandemonium. I nearly fall off the wall when my hair is caught in a woody claw.
Around the Turloch long narrow leaves stand straight up, like under water they used to grow to the light. The water has disappeared rather quickly, the high waterline clearly deposited in dead grass, leaves, a down feather, a red berry. Then a dead sheep, the carcass lying in line with the fleece, heavy with water. The Turloch mirrors the twin mountains to four. A stone wall mossed by many years muddles along the water. Then a wall of giant boulders, the triumph of the agrarian tiger. Through the water we go, Honey splashing before me. My wellies just make it. I feel the clammy pressure of the shafts against my calves. Here and there a loose tree stump, heaved by the water, floated and abandoned. One with a large rock rooted in. The scent of wet earth rises from the dry-up zone.
At a dead branch full of saprophytes I look and find a seat. Just sit still now.
At the top of nearly every blade of grass a perfectly round drop of pearl water is hanging.
One by one the gulls come back to the still water. They come to rest here, not for fishing. No chatter or pushing, at the most some water is kicked.
This is Honeys merry-go-round, the undulating wall to wall meadow carpet, running into far away stony giants. A grand paradise for a small doggie.
Jan Ploeg, 'WaterWing Research and Development Centre 'on Golden Slope', formerly 'the Shed', Fanore, November 28th 2005
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