{"id":950,"date":"2011-01-04T11:00:00","date_gmt":"2011-01-04T11:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ink.verticalplus.co.uk\/archive\/?p=950"},"modified":"2020-12-14T11:14:53","modified_gmt":"2020-12-14T11:14:53","slug":"the-eleventh-day-of-christmas-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/the-eleventh-day-of-christmas-2\/","title":{"rendered":"The Eleventh Day of Christmas"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Winter Outing of the Woolhope Naturalists Field Club, December 1870<\/span>

The ladies of the party are helped over the stile<\/span>
by whiskered botanists fond of a well turned ankle.<\/span>
Miss Taylor draws a notebook from her beaded reticule<\/span>
and writes \u201cThe bunch of mistletoe was so large<\/span>
that it could be exceedingly well seen from the lane.\u201d<\/span>

The Reverend Johnson climbs the ladder<\/span>
\u201cplaced with thoughtful consideration\u201d amid banter<\/span>
from the men about Druids, golden sickles<\/span>
and garlanded white yearling bulls.<\/span>

The Reverend drops the felted sticky bundle<\/span>
and \u201csmall sprays of the heaven born plant<\/span>
unpolluted by any touch of earth\u201d are given out<\/span>
to \u201call the ladies present\u201d. Miss Taylor holds<\/span>
the wishbone sprig with its smeary fruit.<\/span>
Her whalebone stays are biting, her chilblains<\/span>
ache, her hem is iced with mud.  She smiles<\/span>
(Mama says she must always smile).<\/span>
In the dwindling light the botanists are advancing. <\/span>


Lydia Macpherson <\/span>



thursday night on the corner of grange road<\/span>
cambridge<\/span>

the streets here are slippery with leaves.<\/span>
a cyclist struggles to stop, skidding <\/span>
the bicycle carefully across the pavement<\/span>
until the momentum ceases. a pedestrian<\/span>
glares across his shoulder as he sidesteps<\/span>
and says you shouldn't cycle on the pavement,<\/span><\/span>
you know. it's bloody dangerous<\/span>. especially<\/span>
in this weather. especially at night. and where<\/span><\/span>
are your fucking lights, asshole!<\/span>

i tip my umbrella at a forty degree angle to get rid<\/span>
of some water and watch the cyclist put up<\/span>
a middle finger in the direction <\/span>
of the abusive accuser: it stands out tall <\/span>
in the flush of fluorescence from the street lamp,<\/span>
a fat little lightning conductor sucking at the sky.<\/span>
but the young man with the civic sensibilities has stalked off <\/span>
towards the next cup of light without looking back <\/span>
again. bloody cyclists fucking morons asshole. <\/span><\/span>

it rains harder and there is a new sound \u2013 i think<\/span>
i can hear the dull and soggy creak of leaves<\/span>
shatter slightly under the weight of each hit.<\/span>
i think i can hear the drops enter the river, driven <\/span>
deep into the mystery-green flesh of the cam. <\/span>
and moss grow. i think i can hear moss grow. <\/span>

on the periphery of all this the cyclist has dismounted,<\/span>
and is now pushing the bicycle warily across a shiny<\/span>
film of winter debris towards the corner of grange road.<\/span>


marcelle olivier<\/span>





*Lydia Macpherson<\/span> was born and brought up in the Yorkshire Pennines. 
\nShe now lives near Cambridge.  She has an MA in Creative Writing from
\nRoyal Holloway University of London.  Her work has been published in
\nvarious magazines.<\/span>

*marcelle olivier<\/span> is a South African-born writer and archaeologist
\nliving in India. You can read more of her poetry in, amongst
\nothers, Oxford Poetry, New Contrast, and Carapace<\/span>

<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Winter Outing of the Woolhope Naturalists Field Club, December 1870The ladies of the party are helped over the stileby whiskered botanists fond of a well turned ankle.Miss Taylor draws a notebook from her beaded reticuleand writes \u201cThe bunch of mistletoe was so largethat it could be exceedingly well seen from the lane.\u201dThe Reverend Johnson […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-950","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-twelve-days-of-christmas-2010"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/950","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=950"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/950\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23914,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/950\/revisions\/23914"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=950"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=950"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=950"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}