hil.st

quies

opened — IV.30, year of the long thaw

A held breath. A door unlatched. Sit, if you have walked far. The kettle is empty but the stove is warm; the wind has been moving things three centimeters east since dawn.

The Ridge

ascensus

The cabin sits where the slope folds inward, low to the ground, walls of stacked stone bound with turf so thick that in summer the roof flowers. There is no road. The track from the valley closes for five months. In that time the only visitors are the wind and one fox who knows the door.

It is not a place to be reached. It is a place to be sat in until the weather changes its mind.

The Cup

vas

A cup, hand-thrown, glaze uneven on the southern face where the kiln ran cool. It cracked in the second winter when the cabin froze through. I mended the crack with a thread of orange resin — not gold, the hermitage has no gold — and the cup is now more itself than before.

It holds tea in the morning, melt-water in the afternoon, sometimes nothing at all. The crack is the most honest line in the cabin. It says: I have been here long enough to break, and long enough to be mended.

There are six cups on the shelf. I drink from each in turn, so that none of them feels neglected. This is the only ceremony I keep.

The Log

diarium

  1. I.04 first ice on the inside of the south window. measured 2 mm at noon, gone by dusk.
  2. I.11 fox at the door, did not enter. left a single track in the new snow, then thought better of it.
  3. II.03 II.04 aurora — pale green, low to the north. lasted forty minutes. the kettle whistled and I did not hear it.
  4. II.18 súld for three days. the moss on the north wall has gone the colour of wet pewter.
  5. III.02 absolute stillness. I could hear the fire breathing. wrote nothing else for the day.
  6. III.21 the cracked cup, mended. orange thread along the south face. it sits straighter than before.
  7. IV.06 first thaw at the door-stone. the smell of wet turf and the river half a kilometre off.
  8. IV.19 wind W, 11 kt. moved the moss-cup three centimeters east. left it.
  9. IV.27 a single bee at the doorstep. either very early or very confused. I did not ask.
  10. IV.30 opened the journal to today. began the index by candlelight; the wick was uneven.

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