At the turning of the day

Before the coming of the light we walked, up the green lane to the top of the hill then over the hill and far away.

 

In places pockets of hoar frost still hung on the winter leaves. The great muckle cow had frozen tears of ice. The world was hushed. Only the sound of birds' wings and a waiting.

We walked to the ruins of the village where old cold stones stood and the ghosts of cats long gone prowled. Now the only bright flame in the chimney fawr was the ginger fur of me. Once cats curled and people sat, talking and whittling at Welsh love spoons, gifts for Christmas at a time when the feast would be sparce, for all but the cats whose work it was to keep rats from the winter food stores.

 

On top of the hill the wild ponies were curious.

 

Home again. It had been a walk of winter birds. Snipe and woodcock that flew from thefeet almost at the moment you stepped on them. Ravens corkscrewing the air on ragged black wings. Only the memory of larksong. Wren and linnet, lapwing and curlew, mounrful.

 

Back home, fire lit, time now to curl and dream and run with the ghost cats by their cold ghost fires in the winter stone walls of Maes y Mynydd.