Today’s post is an invitation, asking you to find a path and to follow it. Then write about what you experience on your journey.

The journey that you make could be long or short. You may make it on foot, on a bike or with your eyes, or a finger. But whatever the mode of transport an scale you are invited to pay attention whilst you are travelling, to take everything in, and to enjoy the ride.

Along The River

You emerge without fanfare from beneath the busy road

Moving calmly between steep wooded banks

Where the otter plays

Hidden from human eyes.

Against your will you tumble over the weir

A rude interruption

Before re-gathering yourself to pass the old packhorse bridge

And the white cottages by the cow field.

Unexpectedly caught for a moment in a surprising scene from other days.

You continue past the old tip

Layer upon layer of waste stratified on your left side

Whilst kingfishers nest on your right

Flourishes of blue that dart and dip over your surface

In a dance that feels just on the right side of reality.

You reach the back of the sewage works and flow into another

To become something stronger and different

Whilst retaining yourself and staying the same

Onward around the island that your flow has crafted

In the height of your strength and fury

Past the meadow that you make a little smaller with each passing day

Where sand martens swoop and skitter in summer

Before retreating to the safety of your sandy bank.

Finally you pass the pebbly beach on your left

And the Ees on your right where ancient folk looked down over you

millennia ago

As the deer still do today.

You speed up as you deepen

Your banks become steeper and as quickly as that you are gone

Continuing on the journey that you have always made

And that you will

Continue making

Long after all of this is no more.

This post was originally posted on Substack on 21st January 2023