Set off through a kissing gate
\nand walk the old drover\u2019s road
\nthrough Binscarth and Wasdale
\npast the loch to Refuge Corner.
\nIn the silver light of afternoon,
\nalder and ash crowd a hoggin
\ntrack shrubbed with Purslane.
\nThis hillside confounds the myth
\nof a treeless north, as the rook-laden
\ncanopy croaks contentedly above
\nwhere the children of Finstown
\nhoard rope swings and their Eden.
\nThe warm July air is charged
\nwith a sudden threat of thunder
\nas the path splits beside the burn,
\ncurves on beneath the big house
\nthrough wishbones of sycamore,
\nbeech and hawthorn, their leaves
\ngreen-written-upon-green;
\ntheir meanings infinite.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Sunk beneath the hot midday, the bay affirms its integrity \u2013
\nsome sense of filigreed coherence held fast against the tide.<\/p>\n
The sky\u2019s unreachable view shifts light from nowheres
\ninto orchid and celandine, as form shows itself pristine<\/p>\n
yet mute to its own meaning. A collie\u2019s sea-shook rainbow
\nsheds inertia onto sand and we unpack the day\u2019s intention.<\/p>\n
Is it for this we live, our boy hacking fiefdoms from the air
\nin the haze of an afternoon, while his first dog drops<\/p>\n
driftwood at your feet? The moment is its own country
\nslipping past thought, or what passes for thought, towards<\/p>\n
this quantum of Summer; can no more be touched than
\nthe sky\u2019s endless blue yet is real somehow, somehow<\/p>\n
meets its own need to find equivalence in these rocks
\nand us and now. Here, under plough-line corduroy,<\/p>\n
on this horseshoe strand below the Mohr\u2019s green pelt,
\nthe landscape holds us fast within the ambit of its mood;<\/p>\n
finds design in the deep impasto of a hot afternoon, as I mark
\nthe freckles plotting their way up the pale skin of your arm.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In An Orkney Wood Set off through a kissing gate and walk the old drover\u2019s road through Binscarth and Wasdale past the loch to Refuge Corner. In the silver light of afternoon, alder and ash crowd a hoggin track shrubbed with Purslane. This hillside confounds the myth of a treeless north, as the rook-laden canopy […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":372,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":[]},"categories":[408,405],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"\n