Mixed media

30cm x 24 cm

(Framed)

A close affinity to a particular landscape built over many years can engender a sense of ownership, the idea that this special place is yours and yours alone, and a presumption that this is a relationship of mutual recognition. Surely, these mountains have been waiting for me, in  silent acknowledgement of my sense of territory. And yet…….landscapes, even mountains, are never static, and neither are we; person and place can never come together in the same way twice. With absence, the familiarity fades. So….…….

                   What do I know now of this place with which I feign a continuity?

                    I skitter on the surface of its depths, familiarity faded,

                    Longing to belong again.

                    But I’m lapsed; I’m history here, blown dust,

                    Not knowing the truth of it since losing its language,

                    Since it, or I, became foreign.

                     Here, across the loch, I turn to see clouded sky-scraping edges

                     Hurling themselves away from me,

                     Misted distances, arched heights like raised inscrutable eyebrows,

                     Giving up little, indifferent