Ullswater

Fog has been the theme of the week.
Astonishing contrasts between heading from relatively clear conditions in the north and then descending into deep fog in Kendal which has barely shifted during the day before inching my way home in dark pea soupers either back over the Sedbergh road to the motorway or over Shap which has been wearing. This morning I seemed to have the M6 to myself and sailed into Kendal with barely anyone about and lots of folk seem to have started the hols. Shattered when I got home a bit earlier so went for a bit of air at Ullswater as it got dark. Glad that trip doesn't have to be done for a bit now. Hurrah!

The Sonnets to Orpheus: 1 - Rainer Maria Rilke

A tree ascended there. Oh pure transendence!
Oh Orpheus sings! Oh tall tree in the ear!
And all things hushed. Yet even in that silence
a new beginning, beckoning, change appeared.

Creatures of stillness crowded from the bright
unbound forest, out of their lairs and nests;
and it was not from any dullness, not
from fear, that they were so quiet in themselves,

but from just listening. Bellow, roar, shriek
seemed small inside their hearts. And where there had been
at most a makeshift hut to receive the music,

a shelter nailed up out of their darkest longing,
with an entryway that shuddered in the wind-
you built a temple deep inside their hearing.