named bench · viii · head of the eastern path
A small iron bench set at the head of the eastern path, the point at which every dawn walk begins. The paint is whatever colour it has been allowed to oxidise to this year — a rust that has eaten through the green that was painted over the older rust. Two narrow slats. The seat is wet most mornings and is not, by convention, sat on. The standing is what the bench is for.
The view is east: the lane, the gap in the hedge, the first quarter mile of open field, and the line where the sun will, at the agreed minute, come up. Behind, the village still sleeping. The bench is, in this sense, a threshold more than a seat. It has the small brass plate that thresholds sometimes have, with no name on it.
It is used by the dawn walkers — the first arriving leans the stick against the arm, the second tightens a lace against the slat, the third does not stop. Nobody sits. Each thinks, briefly, the thing they always think at this bench, which is whether today they will turn left at the elm or right at the elm. The answer arrives at the elm, never here. After the walkers have gone the bench is alone with the dawn until the first delivery comes up the lane.
field-note to sit on the dawn bench is, by old custom, to declare yourself not a dawn walker that day. nobody minds. the bench minds.
the dawn walkers dawn walker dawn to chapel chapel porch bench