The view at the top draws appreciative sounds from my friend and her partner.
I take a picture on my mobile phone.
Maybe I will post it on Facebook later
In a highly edited version of the day
To help me forget the complexity of real life:
‘Wonderful walk with Paula and Simon near Burnt Island, Fyffe’
I might say or, rather, type.
Up until this point, there have been some qualified highlights:
The weather is good,
Although not the ‘brilliant sunshine’ forecasts had led Paula to expect,
Snatches of bird song,
A yellow hammer, we think,
A buzzard which circled before diving to ‘rip some poor thing’s guts out’, as Simon put it.
I can also recall some darker notes,
The insidious encroachment into nature of the human mania for control:
Signs telling us to keep out,
Barbed wire fences,
A huge brick-shaped rusty blue container in an abandoned farmyard containing God knew what,
And then, in strange wasteland confusion,
A storm-felled tree,
No longer bearing apples or any other fruit,
Having apparently sealed its fate by attempting to grow around a stone which denied its now dry and tangled roots good ground in which to find sufficient purchase.
The scene prompts my friend who writes crime fiction to comment
‘It’s the kind of place I like to bury bodies.’
Earlier a grassy outcrop of rock
That perilously overhung a sharp drop
Had tempted me to stand right there
And stamp down hard,
‘You know’ I joked ‘just to see if it’s my time’
But, obviously, I hadn’t dared.
Later,
After the descent,
We will see a cat scratching itself in silent ecstasy on sun-heated tarmac
And shops whose names hint ancient prophesies of better things to come:
Chapter and Verse Antiques,
Peach Blossom,
Kingdom Amusements,
Zenith Beauty and Everlasting Health.
Come what may,
As we stand here,
Losses have been suffered:
A favourite hat forgotten on a seat on the train,
A bag bearing favourite glasses on the overhead rack.
We had realised just too late,
Watching slightly tortured,
As our carriage pulled away like a dream of what might have been.
In other euphemistic news we have learned that our journey home may be disrupted because a person has been ‘hit by a train’
Putting an end to the pain
Of trying,
Becoming a travel bulletin
Provoking irritation at the inconvenience and
Generously reminding us of the way out
That, one way or another, comes to all -
It is maybe always just a question of choosing to leap
Or waiting to be pushed.
We don’t know this yet but
In the end the trip back to Edinburgh
Will proceed without delays
And miraculously my rucksack,
Reported on lostproperty.org will find its way back to me
Like a handkerchief gallantly returned to an Arthurian damsel in distress
By an algorithmic knight and horse,
Paula’s hat will remain lost to her forever but perhaps, from another point of view, will be found.
But there will be no bringing back the person
Whose blood will by then have been carefully removed from tracks that carry us home
Almost as if they had never existed
Like another piece of Facebook click-bait distraction,
Crucial details wiped out.
But this does not prevent the truth from being exactly what it is -
Quite inexplicable,
An unerasable blemish in the fabric of eternity,
Like all of us,
They will always and forever have been alive
And yet will also always end up dead.
Which brings us back to where we started.
I am not sure we ever really left.
Time is all relative, we are told.
Even so, we are not young
But younger than the man who,
Wheezing, red-faced, slumps onto the bench provided and,
Referring to the climb to reach the summit
Which has been steep,
While simultaneously eyeing the reward of a Cadbury’s crème egg fetched eagerly from his pocket,
Asks us,
‘It was worth it, was it?’
Mar 16, 2025
Mar 16, 2025 at 6:25 PM UTC
The view at the top draws appreciative sounds from my friend and her partner.
I take a picture on my mobile phone.
Maybe I will post it on Facebook later
In a highly edited version of the day
To help me forget the complexity of real life:
‘Wonderful walk with Paula and Simon near Burnt Island, Fyffe’
I might say or, rather, type.
Up until this point, there have been some qualified highlights:
The weather is good,
Although not the ‘brilliant sunshine’ forecasts had led Paula to expect,
Snatches of bird song,
A yellow hammer, we think,
A buzzard which circled before diving to ‘rip some poor thing’s guts out’, as Simon put it.
I can also recall some darker notes,
The insidious encroachment into nature of the human mania for control:
Signs telling us to keep out,
Barbed wire fences,
A huge brick-shaped rusty blue container in an abandoned farmyard containing God knew what,
And then, in strange wasteland confusion,
A storm-felled tree,
No longer bearing apples or any other fruit,
Having apparently sealed its fate by attempting to grow around a stone which denied its now dry and tangled roots good ground in which to find sufficient purchase.
The scene prompts my friend who writes crime fiction to comment
‘It’s the kind of place I like to bury bodies.’
Earlier a grassy outcrop of rock
That perilously overhung a sharp drop
Had tempted me to stand right there
And stamp down hard,
‘You know’ I joked ‘just to see if it’s my time’
But, obviously, I hadn’t dared.
Later,
After the descent,
We will see a cat scratching itself in silent ecstasy on sun-heated tarmac
And shops whose names hint ancient prophesies of better things to come:
Chapter and Verse Antiques,
Peach Blossom,
Kingdom Amusements,
Zenith Beauty and Everlasting Health.
Come what may,
As we stand here,
Losses have been suffered:
A favourite hat forgotten on a seat on the train,
A bag bearing favourite glasses on the overhead rack.
We had realised just too late,
Watching slightly tortured,
As our carriage pulled away like a dream of what might have been.
In other euphemistic news we have learned that our journey home may be disrupted because a person has been ‘hit by a train’
Putting an end to the pain
Of trying,
Becoming a travel bulletin
Provoking irritation at the inconvenience and
Generously reminding us of the way out
That, one way or another, comes to all -
It is maybe always just a question of choosing to leap
Or waiting to be pushed.
We don’t know this yet but
In the end the trip back to Edinburgh
Will proceed without delays
And miraculously my rucksack,
Reported on lostproperty.org will find its way back to me
Like a handkerchief gallantly returned to an Arthurian damsel in distress
By an algorithmic knight and horse,
Paula’s hat will remain lost to her forever but perhaps, from another point of view, will be found.
But there will be no bringing back the person
Whose blood will by then have been carefully removed from tracks that carry us home
Almost as if they had never existed
Like another piece of Facebook click-bait distraction,
Crucial details wiped out.
But this does not prevent the truth from being exactly what it is -
Quite inexplicable,
An unerasable blemish in the fabric of eternity,
Like all of us,
They will always and forever have been alive
And yet will also always end up dead.
Which brings us back to where we started.
I am not sure we ever really left.
Time is all relative, we are told.
Even so, we are not young
But younger than the man who,
Wheezing, red-faced, slumps onto the bench provided and,
Referring to the climb to reach the summit
Which has been steep,
While simultaneously eyeing the reward of a Cadbury’s crème egg fetched eagerly from his pocket,
Asks us,
‘It was worth it, was it?’