I got there six thousand years after he’d gone. It took me that long to find where I needed to be.
The message was still warm, even under the frosted stones. I felt it at the moment the steep hills finally bent towards the glen.
Whoever he was, if it hadn’t been me, knew words would change; so he left the message in a feeling. In the cold that bit my fingers, in the frost-fingers that spread across the stones of Temple Wood, in the silent solitary standing-stone fingers that stretched up to the pinked midwinter sky.
The message didn’t reach my ears – it missed, or I missed it. And the poisoned modern part of my mind pretended to dismiss it.
I almost felt like I should bend my knees to catch it. Every stone on every mound begged to be stolen; promised an explanation. I resisted. They let me go.
“You can’t have this,” he was saying, I think. “It’s lost. It’s not even here any more, just an echo. Where is it?”
Well… I know where it is. It’s behind a door in my mind. It’s not the time to find it. I’ve waited six thousand years. So has he.
But he’s asleep, and I’m not.
May 8
May 8, 2026 at 7:58 AM UTC
I got there six thousand years after he’d gone. It took me that long to find where I needed to be.
The message was still warm, even under the frosted stones. I felt it at the moment the steep hills finally bent towards the glen.
Whoever he was, if it hadn’t been me, knew words would change; so he left the message in a feeling. In the cold that bit my fingers, in the frost-fingers that spread across the stones of Temple Wood, in the silent solitary standing-stone fingers that stretched up to the pinked midwinter sky.
The message didn’t reach my ears – it missed, or I missed it. And the poisoned modern part of my mind pretended to dismiss it.
I almost felt like I should bend my knees to catch it. Every stone on every mound begged to be stolen; promised an explanation. I resisted. They let me go.
“You can’t have this,” he was saying, I think. “It’s lost. It’s not even here any more, just an echo. Where is it?”
Well… I know where it is. It’s behind a door in my mind. It’s not the time to find it. I’ve waited six thousand years. So has he.
But he’s asleep, and I’m not.
Performance: https://youtu.be/oVQZ6eorpK8
Have you ever had the feeling, when you stepped into an ancient landscape, that an ancient voice was trying to tell you something important – if only you could make it out? Inspired by a visit to the ancient landscape of Kilmartin Glen in Scotland on a bright winter morning many years ago.
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