The dazzle

Windermere

Just had to call in the Mortal Man (extra) after a gorgeous walk up Wansfell to catch a WiFi hotspot and post. There might just be a beer involved.
Weirdly met a colleague from over the hard border and my old team on the way up. There must be something in the stars because I bumped into my old friend that I’d lost a bit of contact with after the floods yesterday.
(Wondering about knocking comments off but decided not to but please don’t worry about commenting as I’m unable to visit your journals or reciprocate at all at the moment).

Here’s the wonderful Norman Nicholson as I look out across his world ...

Sea to the West

When the sea’s to the west
The evenings are one dazzle -
You can find no sign of water.
Sun upflows the horizon;
Waves of shine
Heave, crest, fracture,
Explode on the shore;
The wide day burns.
In the incandescent mantle of the air.

Once, fifteen,
I would lean on handlebars,
Staring into the flare,
Blinded by looking,
Letting the gutterings and sykes of light
Flood into my skull.

Then, on the stroke of bedtime,
I’d turn to the town,
Cycle past purpling dykes
To a brown drizzle
Where black-scum shadows
Stagnated between backyard walls.
I pulled the warm dark over my head
Like an eiderdown.

Yet in that final stare when I
(Five times, perhaps, fifteen)
Creak protesting away -
The sea to the west,
The land darkening -
Let my eyes at the last be blinded
Not by the dark
But by the dazzle.