Early to the car park
to celebrate the solitude,
before tackling the undulating wooded path,
through Northumbria's own special rainforest.
You can hear it before you see it..
the peat brown cascade of Hareshaw Linn,
like a mighty torrent of beer.
With my eyes, I followed different droplets of water
as they made their gleeful journeys
to the plunge pool below..
And I sat mesmerised at
the therapy for my soul
Kielder Water sat blue and serene and secure
in its bowl of sympathetic hills,
like water for a beloved pet.
The green hills stretched away
lying comfortably happy
in their own skin of grass and conifers.
While above the cotton wool clouds
raced each other across the sky.
And I felt connected to
the natural world around me
Hermitage stood guard
over the lonely familiar valley,
while its river loudly recalled treachery long ago
in the land of the Reivers.
Where the echoes of the past
still hang in the whispering breeze.
And I reached back to those who came before me
Layers of hills stretched to the west,
conical peaks poking up like children
in a school photograph.
As the afternoon wore on
the furthest horizons faded seamlessly into the sky.
And I saw the earth afresh
as somewhere to cherish and share
While the sun sat stately in the western sky,
shining through the clouds,
a reminder of eternity and the true ground of being.
And I saw into the divine
and my heart and soul were at peace
The great beached whale of the Cheviot
beckoned me back over the border
And the hills and the sky were alive
and they smiled down at me.
The land was benign, an old friend and teacher and everything seemed to be where it should be.
And I was as well.
Peter Sagar
