Pen and ink woodland scene.

After some shopping, I took George to my favourite wood.
We wandered deep inside the wood getting caught on brambles and dodging low Holly branches until we reached a sort of clearing. I got my pad and rubbed it on the leaf stren forest floor. I wanted to make a picture which had some of 'the moment' about it. I was reminded to try this as I had read of John Wolseley doing something like this when he painted in Australia. He had met Roger Deakin, whose last book, 'Wildwood, a journey through trees' I have just read. It is an amazing book, one of the few I will reread, by a consummate writer who has now left us.
George found a stick and barked for me to throw it. This was the start of a long session where he would grab the stick, perhaps four feet long and then charge at me, at speed which required some nimble footwork.
Earlier we had seen some beautiful fallen apples. They were small wild apples, and not bitter to taste. I wondered how the trees had got here. Perhaps a dropped apple, a bird passing a seed? The tree was very old and by necessity, very tall as the canopy is dense.


Small wild apples,
Bright yellow,
Rest where they fell,
A jeweled association
Sitting motionless,
Moonbeams
In the dark, 
Rotting leaves.
 
They decay and waste away
And in communion
Secretly,
Silently,
Pray.