Tide Pools

Tide pools
The receding ocean creates magical underwater worlds.
A temporary present by the grace of the moon.

Palaemon elegans: too pretentious?
Okay then: rock pool shrimp.
Erratic movement entropy as my shadow falls
The claw of crab just about visible hiding in its bed-rock.

Magic bubbles slowly fizz to the surface.
Did you know these underwater meadows and forests of kelp
Create more oxygen than the rain forest?
Don’t dump shit into our rivers.

Sleeping Dragons

Black and white striped toe-socks
Rest on the window sill
Dragons sleeping on the other side of the bay
They have been there for eons
Their rocky scales rounded by a sheet of ice
Sharp edges from erosion

Photos of black and white striped socked feet on old fashioned window sill looking across the bay

It’s time to wake sleepy heads!
I send my thoughts
Tumbling through the stormy day
Smoke rises from their nostrils
Slowly banding round and round the hills
Until it raises into low hanging clouds

You say: it’s mist
From a rainy day
I say: it’s the dragons wakening
Their eons of rest are over
Earth heating too quickly now
Making them stir

Beware dragon riders
Your time has come

low clouds rolling on mountains in the Scottish Highlands, photo taken from across the bay looking towards the mountains
Watermark @storyfae

Might be Sweary

A lunch time walk

belligerent sharp edges dig into the soles of my feet
trail-runners my arse
not designed to withstand the gravel part of my lunchtime stretch
I go into a one legged fold over position my yoga teacher would be proud of
as I wrestle the annoying little bugger out of my shoe
digging with my pointer finger until I got it
snipping it away
only to be in the same situation again five minutes later
this is my favourite stretch though
gnarly ancient hawthorns line the path
distorted branches creating rune like shapes
it stinks of dog poo always at the same spot
I cuss the owner as usual and walk quicker
finally I can take a deep breath again

close up of white hawthorn blossoms surrounded by green leaves

Along the Pathway

Anis dominates my walk.
Not the actual plant, the scent.
Wild fennel galore.
Legions of hopeful seeds.
Pushing aside the gentle meadowsweet,
towering over ribwort plantain,
and even vivacious nettles don’t stand a chance.
Flowering brambles wind around fennel stems
–striving for rare Scottish sunshine
Fragile blossoms with pink hues attract furry helicopters
with heavy yellow Jodhpurs on their hind legs.

Boundaries

Borderland
Threshold
One side yes
One side no
Always no
Sometimes maybe
Transient within
But not beyond
Come as you go
Liminal space
Holds all
Membrane stretches
But doesn’t break
Threshold
Borderland
Are you still awake?

Diffraction

The myriad of diffractions
That is my mind
A thousand tiny rainbows
Butterfly wings in the summer’s breeze
Pinprick diamonds with sharp edges
The princess cutts deep
Into illusions of reality
A fragile trinket unbreakable
Transparent opacity
Distorted by light
Split into temperatures
Assembled atoms
Forged by heat and pressure
Transformation is persistence

Notes from the Borderlands

Antonine's Wall no more
Mounts of earth the only remnant
And a millstone
Porridge persists across the millenia
I observe 
The landscape shaped by the perpetual need to better
Ancient grave
Eons before the Romans
Outlasted alien settlers
Unearthed recently by an impatient farmer in need for drained land and pasture
The ancient lost to history
The sheep had wet feet anyway