Alan Peat

Reduced Landscape

I can still smell the lane with the crab apple tree. It is never the moist, fusty scent of winter but rather it is hay on a hot summer’s day; comforting as a curled cat’s fur in the small, dark hours. If I cock my head slightly and listen long enough there are doves in the far trees and sometimes a curlew. There is always a curlew. And the colours are vivid – look, see the glossy blue of three dunnock eggs, freshly laid  in a bramble outgrowth; the deep red of wild poppies, the purple-black of  berries, ripe enough to stain your fingers. Sometimes sunlight catches a cloud of midges—above the last puddle of a hedgerow’s shallow ditch, they glisten like silver dust. There are people too. Grandma wears a dress with deep pockets; she calls me over for a handful of wild strawberries. They fizz like sherbert on my tongue. Grandad laughs  and lifts me up on his shoulders.  I pick fruit from the highest branches and later by some handed-down alchemy, spread crab apple jelly on buttered toast.

in her hand
label on the last jar
back of the pantry

---

About the Author

Alan Peat is a UK-based poet and author. His work has featured in Frogpond, Mayfly, Heliosparrow, The Heron’s Nest, Presence, Hedgerow, and Blithe Spirit, among others. He was runner-up in the 2021 British Haiku Society’s Ken and Norah Jones Haibun Award and joint third-place winner in the 2022 Time Haiku ekphrastic haibun contest.