Bright ruby. 

Luminous as blood just spilled.

Ink red.

Fire-engine red.

Garnet at its edge.

A crime scene with the scent of iron. 

Of Ferrum Vinum. Of Vino Fir. 

Of dusty gravel roads. Of Roman soldiers quenched by posca.

Of wayfinding. Of railways through pine trees. 

Of pine palms, pine forests, and pine cones. 

There’s mountains here. 

Yes, cool, dry, mountains - maybe alps.

Mountain soil, at least. 

Undergrowth. Definitely. Under needles. Under leaves.

There’s soft redcurrants. And tart blackcurrants too.

Picked at dawn. 

As white mists retreat through valleys and over hills.  

As white mists dissipate over wandering coastlines.

There’s autumn raspberries.

Double-fruited and miniature.  

Sweetly-delicate and brushed the colour of cotton candy. 

Nodding violets, and rose petals still warm from the sun. 

Mulberries and pomegranates too.

From tree-lined Persian streets.

From a private garden on the other side of a wall.

Boysenberry; toyish, like candy. 

A parade of purple ripple.

Black Doris plums; picnic-shiny.

Plucked, ripe.

At the end of summer.

From tall leafy trees.

Clambered-to under dappled light.

Over old wooden fences.

By gravel tracks.

Blackberries. 

Dark and dew-bright.

Picked wild, with your brothers, from bushes by the side of the road. 

Avoiding thorns. Avoiding passing cars.

A bramble. A muddle. A mess. 

Their magenta juice can colour patches of a pie crust, suffusing upwards. 

A piece should be cooled on paper towels, and then devoured. 

A drop could stain a kitchen.

An accident could fill a house with wasps.

Like a can of cherry cola, spilt on a kitchen counter.

Like cherries. In liqueur.

Glassy.

Like Kirsch.

Like black cherry sauce, warmed, reduced.

Served late one lazy Sunday afternoon.

Full of figs and soaked sultanas.

Cloves and liquorice.

Like spiced German Christmas bread.

Like stollen.

Next to a bowl of milk chocolate pieces, on a heavy oak table.

By four empty wooden chairs.

In a house, in the country, with a cold white tile floor.

The fragrance inside a wooden chest of drawers; their familiar

anthropology. 

The fragrance of tiny cedar gift boxes found in an antique market. 

Of an antique market. 

Of pipe boxes perfumed by ancient tobacco. 

Of tea-leaves; and their own arcane calligraphy.

Of red, worn, metal ornaments carefully placed on a Christmas tree.

Of gun oil.

Heady, rich and metallic. 

The scent of raindrops sizzling as they first hit hot summer concrete.

Like iodised air. All ozone and static electricity. 

In your nose like petrichor.

At the top of your mouth like coal dust.

Like a quarry.

Like a cliff face.

Like a drop.

Of anything that rocks.

 An eon of space dust.

Caught in shimmering graphite. Stacked in layers. 

That tang of pencil shavings, when you’re sitting at a school

desk with nothing else to do. 

Sense and memory are fused. Wedded.

Iodine and earth are lithe. Polished. 

A dusting of cocoa is wild raspberry jam.

Poised red fruit is crushed red velvet.

Like opera curtains falling from ceiling to stage. 

Elegant and grand.

A stage lit by bright acidity. 

A stage lit with brightness that floods. 

That sweetens gossamer tannins. 

That lays out our scene. 

By its rays, every burr and flick is highlighted.

Etched into detail.

Fixed.

There’s mint for cleanliness. For godliness. 

For freshness. For convenience.

Bay leaf in a bouquet garni.  

Sage. Rosemary and thyme.

A full Beatles back-catalogue.

Snipped from the balcony or a pot on the terrace. 

Lifted. Elevated. Mentholated.

Like a black olive tasted by a wine dark sea. 

Like a green olive tasted in secret, from the fridge, at midnight. 

Marine and maritime. All mussels. All moules.

Blue-bearded. Green-lipped. Iridescent. 

A millennia of seafloor. Of seabed.

Of clam shells. Of oyster shells. 

For saline gardens. For pristine garden paths.

Kina. Nori. Kelp. 

Those tiny shellfish you dig from the sand with your feet when the tide goes out.

Toes grasping downwards.

Smoke from a driftwood fire. 

The one we made on the beach with friends when it was probably illegal to do so.

But no one tried to stop us.

Salt from when we last swam in the sea.

In an ocean at the end of the world. 

O Cabernet

Aggregate ancient ruby. 

Why do you so often insist on emerging like Darth Vader from the gloom? 

All Sith-like and masterful.  

Beloved in collaboration.

Prone to domination.

Oak, that would be mast or stern or prow, is here only vessel to alchemy.

Finding you is like chasing a red thread back through time.

Like a memory.

Like iron in the blood. 

O Cabernet

Sometimes it feels as though the king has left the building.

He appears to be stuck in the carpark.

Scratching at the edge of his frayed gown.

O Cabernet

Of diverse lineage and wild pedigree.

Containing multitudes.  

Now you are scarlet.

Now you are aflame. 

Now you hold dappled light - auburn and copper - in the glass as in the canopy. 

Like sun through the fingers of a child’s hand.

And, yet, what’s this? 

A moment’s passed and you’ve already turned away from me. 

 'I’m only a trick of the light,’ you say.

And your voice has changed. 

Your face has changed. 

You have changed.

—————-


The JRWWC happens every year and is open to all.