Our heaving lungs suck the air as we climb.
Higher, higher.
Aching legs and numb feet scramble over boulders and broken branches.
Rain, wind, and a glimmer of sun. A distant mist descending
from the sullen sky onto the earth, erasing a castle, a monument
a city.
Leaves shake violently in the cutting wind. Noise.
Squelching mud, snapping twigs,
unnatural sound, we create it.
On the cliff top, the landscape is our canvas.
Acorns and chestnuts, branches and stones, litter the floor
like a countryside collage hung on a classroom wall. Winters decay.
Carcasses of cream coloured leaves, consumed by insects, lie randomly
forming delicate lace arrangements.
Brown mud, brown leaves, brown bark, paint the backdrop
of a multi coloured woodland.
Green moss on a broken wall,
orange, yellow and grey foliage A tiny shoot, pushes through the earth.
Layers of life on death, death on life. The liberty of nature.
Nature is shrinking, the colours rinsed out by
buildings, roads, litter, wire fences
hemming in the farmers cows
hemming in history.
Humanity’s smell is pungent,
food and people
people and food.
Through the wind, a distant drilling is heard.
©Eilidh G Clark
Eilidh G Clark 