Forest Road, c/o: SB.,

Slashing rain through a misaligned car window. Tipping ashes through grey on grey. A fingerpicker's rough clusters seeping through the sundry clouds, drifting, cloaking the rain-splashed plastic interior. As we looked out from the vantage point in the Welsh hills, a low grey tongue of cloud lolled in the valley, steeply banked by trees and fields of multiples of sheep, and an arrogant pheasant stationed on top a fence post close to the car, our haven from the cold outside. You'd been borne forward by a forest road with remaining acne scars, a long stretch towarddistant Snowdonia and perpetually skirting the height of a hillrange, through portals of metal gates and huddling clusters of houses, on an afternoon's sojourn further and further away from any perceived location. Yet this was nice for a time,until the grey rolled in through the window rolled, sparking the ancient fearful questioning of silences between friends left by a temporal layby someplace in a slight occupation of time. Gradually we passed through the smoke rings, towards a deep movement, smiling. And then onwards, further down the ruttedgravel track into a blanket of yellow-flowered trees, solemn in their dripping.A young couple with a pram stood next to a dull coloured car, still awhile to watch us, the eyeing pair passing, left to wander what reverence was contained in that small containment. What half-brained concept of the dimmed imaginations left whirring on prepared strings,resonance, reverberations, assessment-reassessments. No words were spoken as we passed them again, on our way out of the dead zone.Out into the smoothed road, desolate. Reflecting inward colours. Driving forward, slowed at the sight of groups of walkers vested in animal hides and false weapons, divested of motive, leaving that vacuous space for guesswork. Thinking about asking, not acting, no disappointments - just a brow, and several of these bestial pretences sluggishly progressing toward the passenger, troubled opening a gate, hands leaden with tremulous, excited humour. A caravan hidden in trees. Lapwings were momentarily haunting a pond near a hollow steel barn, casting a brief form against a formless expanse of Welsh sky. Young dogs racing.