1. I’m climbing hills today in one, effete poet’s way they could be metaphors for all sorts of ‘big life things’ but in another, my belly is about to give my knees some trouble
2. The sepia on this one’s different there was sometimes bitterness in steps made here as the lure of the theme park rides sat so near but the years have done a lot to replace the roller coaster thrill with the heart weight of hills, dales and rivers with tales to tell
3. You remember I mentioned the metaphor? And the belly troubling the knees? Well these things came to pass as I hauled my carcass up the hill turning the air blue
The metaphor? Decisions that once were natural, easy like breathing now can feel laboured, burdened when a step is placed how can I be sure the ground will hold?
Even at the peak, where I once could exhale at the majesty of a job well done I’m now fraught with the thought of the journey down
4. This river is different at home the stream accompanies me on local walks, showing me the known and keeping my chin up
Here, the bold broadness of the river hides secrets and speaks in a deeper tongue coarse fish, familiar to me are replaced by those that anglers prize
I am both lost and a little more alive
5. Looking into the faces of teenagers dressed for town centres, either striding ahead or shambling behind parents intent on extolling the virtues of fresh air and nature while feeling strangely out of breath at the climb
closer in, the adolescent eyes show a plethora of emotion contempt, depression, longing utter conviction that life is happening somewhere, anywhere else
but if I may offer some advice: relent as in a few blurred years you’ll succumb to the same fossilisation and will need some routes to remember