A Tree, a Saint and a Cake.

And when was the last time you lay down on a bench in a village square and looked up at the tree overhead?

I did, yesterday.

It was a chestnut, horse. 

Conker tree where I come from.

The leaves were spring-new – a birth-energy green against a virgin-blue sky.

Talking of which… there was a silver metal crucifix behind me.

If I turned my head a little I could make out Jesus – I think it was him.

He looked like him, but something seemed out of place, or in-place if deliberate.

At the very top – above the Lord’s head (bonce) – the sculptor had added a giant silver sea-gull.

“If I had the wings of a dove….” 

These were the words that football crowds would sing about their adversaries once upon a distant time.

“And I had the bum of a cow…”

Poor Jesus.

From above, many things come.

But from below they grow.

The late afternoon hours grew into early evening.

A dog came past.

I said hello.

I crossed the square to the shop, bought a stamp a bottle of water and a cake/mousse/thing.

“Are you going to eat that straight away?”

“Probably.”

“You should wait at least half an hour, it’s frozen.”

“I’ll try.”

I went back across the square and sat on the steps in the shade – the bench was in full sunshine.

It was hot.

I looked at the moussey-cakey-thingy.

Would you have waited?

You would have to be a saint.