Morning Of Souls

   Winter tree lines wear no jewellery this morning, the mighty Oak and Ash stand naked of leaf and the early winter winds clear the last autumn dust from their bark.
   The fen chill settles in sheets of fine haunting mist that stand above that rich black soil and rises like walking grey souls from river and dyke where banks of dew covered sedge and reed dance their morning jig. Could Dickens make up such a mystic atmosphere where mole catcher and waterman wake at dawn in dark fenland cottage with damp floors of stone and stove that slept the night with amber glow from peat and bog oak, maybe only the magic of this mysterious land of the marsh can do such things and will continue to do so long after his pages are gone from our world.
   As the months of ice and snow draw closer and the tigers of the fen face their hard season, a season when natures larder bares no salads but only peppered herb and festive game to fill their stomach, there sits a change in the flatlands, a strange quiet presence, maybe the spirit of winter settles upon the garden of the east, her bitter cold breath still to appear.