The Grauballe Man

Beyond the old wiry gate, that lollopped happily at the end of the un kept path, beside the loose willow branches swishing heartlessly in the heartless breeze stands a man and he stands alone. Above is the godless grey morning sky and below his feet runs the satan-less muddy slosh and slush of bovine trampled grass. If he had glanced to his left, he would see deep forest and so should you. Yet if he glanced to his right he would have seen long ebbing fields of various hues and growing things, occasional tree and often bird or man shadow. Ahead of him lumbered the forest and to his rear sighed a cottage of sag roof and hash walls. Had the cottage been a creature it would not have been a heavy sleepy wooly thing, loyally masticating grasses and moving not regularly nor with grace; fortunately it was a cottage and served just that purpose to its owner.
Its owner stood in the field, a man of interminable shape and mind almost a grey nothing but for the occasional slow and silent gestures with his hands he made at and apparently to nothing and no one. The dictums of the literary aesthetic dictate that a man stood secluded in a lonely field should have some poetic purpose or meaningful dilemma, however our man simply enjoyed the morning and standing under the morning especially. It would not do to call him a solemn man; it would not do at all; for you could not shake his hand condoling or cuddle him compassionately; indeed you should be rather curiously horrified if you ever met him! His clothes raggedy they are not nor are his sockets of sight old and weary with toil; indeed after the initial horror the stout of nose and stern of heart not fleeing in doubt or weeping in dreamy whispered denials should call him; peculiarly handsome, oddly smiling and wryly gentle for indeed on occasions he had been desperately and beautifully garrulous. The breathing creatures of the earth treated him like a rare and splendid butter, delicious and precious. The non breathing phantoms of light and falling petal swift mystery endured him for his mirth and loathed him for the same. Our man had no family nor pain to resolve there in, crimes he had committed and gotten away with, crimes he had committed and been chastised for, it would surprise some and none to know he resented nothing and no one. What benefit a man to stand silently in the quiet hue of the humming morn, where goes he and what for? Not a soul had enquired nor indeed dared a soul. He stood as if he had been poured from a fat earthen jug, sloshing and smattering into shape and form for all to see and ignore.
His youth had been a thing of dangerous glories and folly ridden failures yet old he had grown and happy with it too. Old and youth being inaccurate and best described as river words, endless and commendable useful and rueful to the unwise and pragmatic alike, not being static words have no routes and our man was rainbow rootless yet quite the shimmering bubble of colour and smooth worded attire. His height like his intellect was neither mediocre nor exceptional, and upon reflection most creatures whether corporeal or butter cherishing found him almost impossible to articulate. It is not that he defies description for he opposes and fears nothing, it is that which would render him satisfactorily explained in the eyes of strangers which is precisely his elusive quality and thus so he remains. In many ways a passerby would mark him out as a thoroughly average man if he were not stood alone in a damp early morning field, braving the gentle morning spittle rain and brittle dewy winds. His life was by no means at an end nor was it in the first flashing moments of speech and adulation, his failures he took with the same grace and stoic shoulder shrug as he did his successes; and what success he had had always came easily to him.
He that challenges the abyss must be aware that the fathomless anti light challenges him also, and he that slays the Minotaur should know that he too becomes a beast which in turn must be slain. So it is he that stands willing alone some way gladly way in a gone field, educes desire to yield answers that inspire mysteries for what gain a man he who despises mystery yet persists in standing alone? Such things our man would say should you speak to him some day, this although being entirely unlikely is not altogether implausible. Yes our man has loved and been hated, he has hated and loved in different breathes of the same gasping loveliness, that belittles and enlarges us all; even you to sit and read so proudly and questioningly; such romances have inspired nothing and no one for loving is easily achieved yet who can easily abandon that hesitating emotion? So the morning man and the morning airs pass and the morning birds dash rash and clever like you have seen them amongst impossible leaves and bee webs, to skip upon the fine invisible airs which orchestrates the ebbing flow of lakes and the dry brass brand rattle of leaves to rhythm some fluttering as but not like fine yellow birds and the flags of castles. Which go flapping eagerly so like children are flags to waver melodiously. Who has known has not known the morning, and so what profit any soul to do as it may if possibly you could subdue the morning? For the grass under your feet is just as sweet and green a that grass upon which your enemy stands, and so choose your field not wisely nor in haste simply go there where you know you may stand happily.