Literary Passages -- The Blackbird's Song by Pauline Holdstock

Bony shins and bare feet sticking out from shorn-off breeches, the men are padding over our deck. We lie in shadow still. The sunrise only just fleshing the air. Across the river the light falls on the mass of sails and spars. Behind them, the bare, stripped hills are made beautiful by the pink light. Every indentation, every cleft and fissure in the land coloured one of a thousand shades from the purple of the black rose to the pink of a cat's lip.