Walking shoes laced, first light breaking dark.
Dawn, a liminal hour,
awareness and dreaming intermesh,
ancient ones stir in a fractured sky.
Oyster catcher shrills, clipping the silence;
a ghostly egret shimmers
in still water, here, in this place,
she calls home.
Studland Heath, heather crisp, bracken gold,
the drought is in us all,
an absence,
a struggle to feel fully alive.
To choose hope over despair.
Cotton-grass dew holds glimmers of lightÂ
silken threads string between drooping fronds,
an interseeping of species,
a ferment of coexistence,
life finding its way.
Island edges, sharp yet blended,
an intermingling of places.
Luscombe Stream melts into harbour;
Old Harry, neither land nor sea.
A warbler darts from marsh to heath,
unbound, free simply to be.
Can the islanders soften their edges?
If egret stands so still
water forgets to ripple,
perhaps we too might soften-
dissolve distance – the separation.
Sunset, the western sky ablaze,
Twilight – the imaginal hour,
sacred wonder,
forested lands, so alive.
Celtic boats drawn up on ancient jetties,
owl calls in the night.
Here, within this land
of chalk and salt,
how do we belong-
to this place,
one another,
to our ancestral story?
