GNER to Edinburgh

On a day devoid of light I travelled north.
Under the leaden sky all sense of direction failed.
The flavour of the passing hours was bland without the
sun's round journey texturing the changing light.

I worked as an effort of will to ensure the hours were not without their fruitfulness
But all was grey, thought mechanical; consciousness dull.
One by one I wrung the words from my brain and laboriously strung them across the screen.
The letters hung from the line like limp washing on a still day.

I sipped coffee in the hope that it would quicken my blood
and stimulate my brain but the synapses were damp as the drizzling mist
and the sparks of thought fizzed with a faint hiss as the waves of intention
struggled to propogate their motion.

Then the view abruptly changed.
The misty shrouded land fell down to sea.
Long curls of swell crawled slowly on a sea of dull mercury..
Ribs of rocks spiked the water's skin and the mist steamed grey.

I saw the lonely desolation of the scene and in an instant I was caught.
Something deep stirred despite dull journey stupor,
some vestige of spirit leapt from me, clinging like a limpet to the scene.
Silently I called back across the opening acres as the train sped on.
There was no reply.

Still that piece of me is missing.
Like a broken parent grieving for a runaway child
I grieve for the neglected needs of my spirit,
the solitudes untaken,
the silences uncherished
the beauties unnurtured.

And even now
As I lie in a strange bed in an empty room
I sense the distant hauntings of my own spirit
Walking on the waters where the dark cliffs rise
And the tide shoulders against the night shore.
Walking where the fish scales flicker;
Silver lanterns of the luminescent moon.

(c) A McN