“With an eye made quiet … we see into the life of things.”

William Wordsworth’s “Tintern Abbey”

“[It is] felt in the blood, and felt along the heart.”

William Wordsworth’s “Tintern Abbey”

[In]Dreams—it’s just A MANNER. in an Anna Matter …

Subject: Here again, from here, and there

Down we go.

[As] the path curves gently down towards the water’s edge threaded between rough grasses scattering stones among patches of heather—gently down—our steps fall in a rhythm soft against the crunch of slate-chip whispers, of the grass at our boots, brushing … waving.

(You go first quiet, no drama … [you shed being] small, inward, quiet—and the place reaches you, before I do.)

Even with eyes closed, the green’s dampness cools ankles with heather-caught moistures … the descent is felt and seen and heard.

(Is this a snapshot making new memory, or recognition she remembers this place … perhaps she recognises need before words exist?)

You walk slightly ahead drawn, by the unseen cadence of lakeland path-borders … soft patches of moss, in the distance, sheep—and a cool wind funneling down the valley—her memory[?]—is it peace … or the imagined certainty of something like it.

The air carries cool mineral scents of the water we haven’t seen—ravens croak and meadow pipets’ flickers cross our path lifting peaty earths … and somewhere treats us conifers resin.

(You know it’s there before we see it—the water announcing quietly gifts its air first … and then its body.—by scent before the sound belongs … but never fully heard—just hush … a dampness carrying nature. Before the reveal.)

This world adjusts to our steps—as we leave behind everything. You squeeze my hand, you walk ahead … drawn by the promise of water.

You say … little … your hand’s said everything, as land dips and the reservoir appears.

Its surface is glassy, brushed-metallic slate-grey against gold from the lowering sun.

(The way she looks … it changes her posture and pace—slightly though. I notice—she’s found or been found … long sheets of silver-blues and yellow … still, and still gently down.)

It’s wide—waiting for you—where the views cease being scenery becoming …  reunion—less an arrival, than the end of a wait left patient.

You stop … I let you … your fingers tighten around my mine, this is what you came for: deep greens around the fells, purple, brown—late summer heather, and in the distance, the curve of [REDACTED] Fell rising … far shores softened by silhouette of lone pine rows.

(I watch you watch it—it’s the only part I keep [for myself].)

This is the moment we came for—when colours shift with every breath: so much slate, of pewter, violet … and for the moment everything stills.

There’s weight to this moment—we both feel it.

If the words exist to fill it, call it, a quiet shock of beauty.

—JustD

Image by Kendall Kessler “Claytor Lake Dock” Original 40″ x 30″ Oil painting