The Body This occluded eye, buried in the limestone bank, the remnant of some sister of one-eyed Woden, who stumbled here from outer air into our world. She fell, toppled from a height, (tripped while running, perhaps, falling in full flight like a Hunter on Old Shoreham Road) fell headfirst, cheek down, as if wielded like a sledge. Impact so fierce her eye, wrenched from its socket, nuzzled into mud and mess. Where she fell, this other angel, angel of other, marks her size, her scale. She measured her length upon the ground. Feet a hundred metres from her face, her hair a straggling mass the autumn colour of woodland, hand imprints in the thin, soft soil, denuded impact craters of breast and hip, the hillside’s long contours of leg and arm. Let’s say her name was Varna. A warning. Where she fell, she stayed, came to love the flank of the rising hill, warmed by the southern sun, though wild in wind, ragged in rain, a mist mess of forgetfulness. She kept sight in that grounded eye. It keeps watch on her territory still and all the beings that congregate here to enjoy its ground as home and haven, a high window on the land and sea.
Look out for more of Aldilà tomorrow…
