north light

Scotland is an amazing country, it really is.

Here I am, in the middle of the ‘busy’ centre, and only twenty minutes away, stretches like this

of space,

of shore,

of sky.

You wouldn’t say it was beautiful as such – it’s more the way it stretches, and lets you breathe.

I know, I’ve always known, how fortunate I am to walk in places like this,

to breathe such fresh air,

to drink in such big skies.

I like to have places that I can go back to, over and over again.

There’s an ease about it, a sense of familiarity, of intimacy.

You don’t need to spend time with the getting to know you but can just flop straight down into hello, and how are you, and my goodness it’s good to be here.

Taking photographs from this kind of place, this kind of relationship, feels different too.

It’s more relaxed.

You’re not trying to ‘capture’ but simply to honour and express something of the way a place is looking:

one particular afternoon,

in a certain kind of light,

on a Friday after work,

in early June.

brushing the sand off my feet
I watch my footprints
return to the sea

silver waves
lapping
on molten rock
after the meditation bell

poem writing
beneath this skylark song
the scratch of last year’s heather