Sleeping Lions

Last night I drank wine under a snow moon, the last full moon of winter.

Today the sunlight warms the skin of my cheek.

We walk down to the buzzard trees. Little-legs bounce beside me, buoyed by the newness of the day. Her voice burbles under and over the constant stream of birdsong. When she pauses to take a breath so too do the birds. Blue tits and robins wait in the shining bare branches for Little-legs to swallow the air.

A line of tall pines leans uphill, heads knotted and gnarled. Little-legs stares upward for a while, squinting at the mess of branches. These are the buzzard trees. A family live here, high and hidden. On hot heavy days of summer, they call to each other, and we watch them wheeling black against blue. Today they are silent. Untouchable and unseen in their swaying world.

Down here the earth is still and damp and the brown river surges. Unconsciously, we quicken our pace to match its rushing temper. The celandine are out, and Little-legs counts patches of violets. We try to catch their scent before they steal it back. Miss it and it’s gone.

— I was once told that you only get to smell violets once in a lifetime. After that it is only ever a memory of that first sniff—

We pause at a crossroads where the tarmac of the lane gives way to undulating earth and rocky paths steal into the hawthorn either side. I close my eyes— still hollow from too much snow moon and too little sleep— and lean into the warmth of the afternoon. Little-legs races along the edges of glossy brown puddles and pivots on one leg, artfully keeping her toes clear of the water. She leaps as I lean.

She wants to go further into the valley, down to their muddy den among the goat-willow, and beyond that to the sea. She talks of dams and rockpools and mermaid’s purses. I think, vaguely, of the yellow flag irises that will soon appear where the seaweed creeps into the river. But I am too tired to go today. We head up the path towards home.

Leaving the frantic river behind us, we slow down again. Bored by my drowsiness, Little-legs begins to hunt for lions. She looks for them in the gaps in the hedgerows, checking behind scurvy grass and pennywort. She creeps stealthily between the acid green alexanders mimicking their swishing gait; an expert tracker in a damp, green savannah.

She finds a promising footprint, dark and wet on the lane. It is a clear sign that lions have been about, but—she tells me with a sigh— no guarantee that we will spot one today. I am no longer so tired. I scour the gleaming fields looking for a pale shadow stalking in the grass. A flock of sparrows shoot up from the far corner of the nearest field and we freeze in expectation.

But she is right. No guarantee.

The lion’s footprint is just another promise— like the violets and the warm skin and the creaking pines— that things are waking up.

But first… right now… I really need a bit more sleep.