174 DAYS OF AUTUMN 



By night a mouse would consume its 

 body beautiful with the bar of tawny 

 velvet on its duskiness. From the time of 

 early spring, when first the willow wren 

 had called by the stream, the bee had 

 climbed over the flowers, bartering the gold 

 grains of the pollen for the honey that it 

 desired so eagerly. In April it had gone to 

 the apple blossom in the orchard and heavy- 

 odoured nettles filling the ditches; invaded 

 the sanctities of all the flowers of summer's 

 lavishing. Busy was my hunchback bee, 

 feeding on no other form of life, helping 

 the birth of the seeds to which the hue and 

 scent of the petals were servant, working 

 for the future of her race, utterly selfless; 

 humming a wander-song as the sun 

 strengthened its vanes, now fretted by toil 

 and labour. 



Then there was no hope anywhere, no 

 voice among the trees, nothing but the feeble 

 winnowing of the leaves as they sank to the 

 earth, and the dazed drone of a dying fly. 



