Rosebay willowherb seedpods cracked ajar like fans of white feathers. Exhausted after the carmine blaze of summer, the Chamaenerion angustifolium plants were dry, rusty and derelict. Their long thin seedpods had split into four strands, stretching open to reveal a mass of pappus – silky plumes attached to hundreds of tiny spilling seeds per pod, 80,000 or so to a plant.
It was a wonder those seeds were still there, given the shaking they must have got from Red Ophelia. But, arrested in a kind of limbo, like a photograph, they had yet to liberate themselves and venture into the wide world.
Perhaps the fireweed, as rosebay willowherb is also known, arrived in this field of limestone quarry spoil in the slipstream of trains steaming along the line now long abandoned. Walking on the disused track I came across a length of timber with EVANS painted on one side and SLOW DOWN on the other. It was hard not to take this personally, so I did.
The fog muffled nearby rumbles and beeps of machinery. A black crow feather stuck upright in moss. A white pigeon feather lay caught in a pad of birdsfoot trefoil. A green woodpecker flew down from the quarry with a rapid high-pitched yaffle. A raven crossed overhead, barking softly as if in recognition. Rooks, worm-charming in another field, rose together into the grey. Agitated blackbirds and other anonymous little birds fussed about the hedge.
The rosebay willowherb collected water droplets from mizzle. Seeing the seedheads full of damp feathers frozen in time, I was reminded of Peter Reading’s poem entitled That find of Longisquama insignis. The poem, about the discovery of what may be the earliest fossil feather, ended with a quote from Propertius: “Sunt aliquid manes” (there are some ghosts).
In this fog there are indeed ghosts: in the field, the railway, inside the seeds to be carried on white feathers, it is their season. It started to rain and rain and rain.
On Sunday, 5.58am, Paul Evans will read the first of his four Tweets of the Day on BBC Radio 4 (also available as a podcast on the Radio 4 website.
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