This is a place (2009)

Here are some nettles

Here are some stones

Here is some grass

Here is a wall

In these pictures you can’t hear the wind roaring

Or feel it shoving at your back

Winds that shatter walls and break necks

Winds that wail like feverish children

Winds that seethe and hiss

Winds like a Mother’s insistent “Hush”

Winds like a lover’s breathe on your neck

Winds like a hand at the small of your back guiding you to where you should have been all along

This is a place where the words fall silent in your mouth

This is a place to stand and stare agog

This is a place where you will be kept warm and sheltered

This is a place where all you need is provided for you

This is a place where you’re allowed to feel sad or disappointed

This is a place where you’re allowed to feel alive with the sunshine in your veins

This is a place where there is comfort in your insignificance

This is a place where you touch the bark and smell the grass

This is a place where dead leaves cluster at your feet

This is a place where everyone should come

This is a place where the cushioned ground rises to meet you

This is a place to cast spells

This is a place to collect stones, pine cones, leaves and sticks

This is a place where green meets yellow

This is a place to collect white heather for luck

This is a place where you won’t understand the signposts

This is a place to play hide and seek

This is a place to wear a green coat and disappear into the trees

This is a place where the trees are taller than the tallest man

This is a place people will write songs about one day

This is a place where you could fall asleep for a hundred years and when you woke up everything would be the same

This is a place to be a solitary shadow, insular and content

This is a place to be a mirror for other people to look into

This is a place where you close your eyes and the backs of your eyelids are green

This is a place where you can see the world

This is a place you can get to anywhere from if you have enough time, money, a map, a good pair of boots, accommodation when you need it and a good grasp of the local language

This is a place your father came to once

This is a place to remember that you are young

This is a place to remember that one day you will be old

This is a place to remember that one day you will die

This is a place of ancients.

This is a place where all the hooks that tether you to the place where you usually are are removed

This is a place where you are weightless

This is a place where I kissed you once but didn’t tell you

This is a place where I loved you once but didn’t tell anyone

This is a place where if you listen hard enough God whispers

This is a place where a lost glove is the saddest thing in the world

This is a place where you holler echoless into the wind with lungs full of ice

This is a place to hear the dry dead leaves crunching under your feet

This is a place to remember a time and feel sad

This is a place to remember another place and feel long-forgotten longing pulling at you

This is a place where all is luminous and lush

This is a place where you hear footsteps behind you but don’t feel compelled to turn around and see who it is

This is a place for one last lingering look

This is a place to crash glorious through the undergrowth whooping like a child and ruining your best boots

This is a place to hear a sound you haven’t heard for years and years

This is a place where no birds sing, or squirrels scurry

This is a place to hear the birds sing and see the squirrels scurry

This is a place where all is well with the world

This is a place where the sun makes you blink

This is a place to be wary of the slippery leaves and mud, so treacherous underfoot

This is a place to think without thinking

This is a place to recall childhood

This is a place where you can spy on people and they’d never know

This is a place of mud, leaves, grass, trees and clean air in the heart of the industrial North

This is a place where you can forget

This is a place where you can remember