Finite - a prose poem

A second piece written on holiday, originally called No Work On Monday!

Maybe it's my age that brings death to my thoughts so often.

I wrote this not out of a feeling of depression but rather a sense of the release death offers and how briefly we share the earth in comparison to natural phenomena - which are of course, themselves, finite.

Everyday, in some way, I contemplate my death.

Today – Friday – stood above these staggering falls, I cast, in my mind's eye, my carcass down from this viewing bridge to cascade and shatter on the rocks below. And although I fear my end would be neither instant or painless, the thundering water, blistering the air and cracking fractures in the rock, would so overwhelm me that in my shattered state I would have no strength to fight my way back to grace.

The torrent like a thousand fists, like the hurling of a thousand stones, would boulder me to death, pressing my splintered rib cage down against these ragged sharps.

And later, when the hue and cry had scoured the fruitless paths, they'd find these tattered bollocks buttered into crevices beneath the fall. They'd pull me out, of course, and as some poor sod wrung water from his uniform, and accepted praise from colleagues for a difficult job well done, they'd strap what's left of me to a stretcher and man-handle me back to the patient car-parked ambulance.

There'd be no need for sirens blaring, no alarum bells. Hurrying would make no difference now.

And though I do not doubt that some would curse the spot and shout their angry questions in my dead face, I would rest more or less peacefully knowing this to be my last place.

The Birks Of Aberfeldy

I wrote this while we were away in Aberfeldy recently.

I visited the Birks of Aberfeldy several times - a woodland walk along a river that creates a series of waterfalls, the Falls of Moness, famously written about by Robert Burns in his song The Birks of Aberfeldy - he sits now on a bench surveying the scene.

The woodland is mixed but the most striking and numerous are the silver birch trees, The Birks.  We did catch a glimpse of a rare red squirrel, too.

It rained a lot one day but the following morning was beautiful and the swollen river was powerfully impressive as it cascaded along the gorge, almost too intense an experience at the time.

I climb this morning

once again

the Birks of Aberfeldy

mount the path

through silvered trees

their mossy overgrowth

their heart-shaped leaves

to where the upmost bridge

spans the bursting stream

and here

I pause

for half an hour or so

to stand and count the water

breathe sunshine

from the naked sky

I study the larches too

that drip with yellow light

against the blue

while chitting wrens

chase flies along their limbs

and russet squirrels

hunt the drooping boughs

I have no thought

to justify the place

no need to argue

why or when or how

here simply is a changing constancy

a thundering, falling flow

that stuns the earth

to silence

drums below the feet

drowns the traffic of the brain

drugs the blood

and yet this dryad spirit is too great

it seems

or this mind too weak

for I find I have to turn away

to imagine

an understanding

of the place

I cannot live within this terrifying moment

but rather long for its memory

so rich is it

in its sufficiency