The high road was on a level and with fine views. After a moment`s stretch I set off south east towards the Clattering path, (clackety boots on the clattering path). I stopped and stared at a small bird, busy in high spruce branches, jabbing at a cone, its jerky movement punctuated by short calls. Black and white head, yellow breast, slate blue back: a blue tit, I think.
I wanted the purge and cleanse of a long run. I also wanted to stand and look; name the world I saw.
This is an emerging impulse; not to "own" but to claim relationship with things, through naming them: Down in the glen we have no street lighting (and barely a road). On clear winter evenings I`ll go out the front or back door and I`ll call the stars by name, (the few I know). Above the dark south eastern woods - Castor and Pollux, the twins in Gemini where meteor showers flare in mid December; transcending the forest`s southern gateway bright Sirius and the Orion constellation ; Betelgeuse and Rigus; west of south flickers Aldebaran by the eye of Taurus. Turning north, above the river I`ll find and name the Great Bear and Cassiopeia, dancing agelessly around the faint, pivotal, pole star.
Recommencing my run, following the slow curve south, I suddenly cried out in pain. My right calf muscle had seized. I could not run. I rested and massaged and slapped the back of my leg. I hobbled to a stretch where a cold sun shone by the road`s edge. Despondent, still limping painfully, I decided to make my way home. The larches on my left were dark shapes in the low sunlight.
My eye was drawn fifty yards beyond to a cluster of cones in high larch branches. I hobbled quietly now towards the dark mass, soon realising I was seeing a squirrel. Might it be red ? In that glare, I couldn`t tell and it was still too far away to be sure. I drew closer, staring upwards. A light frame, large, tufty, triangular ears. Moving under the tree I saw red in the shape; not the red/brown of larch tops but intrinsic to the animal.
Sensing me it began to retreat, agile and quick, along and down. The tree canopy a road network. Down towards Armour Burn and Cadon Bank where I`ve seen only greys . But I`d seen it and named my first red squirrel in this forest.
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