ERosanne: Scottish Summer

Saturday 4 September 2010

Scottish Summer - (Innocence)

I absolutely love visiting Scotland. I love the scenery, the clean air, the sense of space, the winding roads, the wildlife. I love the beaches, the accent, and the people. If it were not for my career and my family, and I could choose to live anywhere in the world, it would undoubtedly be Scotland.

So, that bit of gushing over and done with, I had a lovely (though all too short) visit to Banffshire last week to visit friends amongst other things. The only thing that was slightly less than perfect was the weather, which prevented me from achieving some of the things I had set out to do. Nevertheless, on route back down south, I paid a customary visit to a good friend in the coastal town of Montrose (quite probably my favourite Scottish town). As soon as I began my journey back from Banffshire, sod's law kicked into action and the sun finally, rather shyly sneaked out from behind the clouds that had kept it hidden all week. This allowed me, at last, to fit in a photo-shoot on the last day I was north of the border.

Dave Ayerst Davies and I paid a visit to a small sandy beach called Lunan Bay, just south of Montrose. It's a beautiful beach with steep sand-dunes, we had visited there a couple of years ago and taken these photos here, and here. We went in search of the anchor featured in those images, which, over the passage of time had completely disappeared into the sand, and only the very tip was left above the surface, never to see the light of day again.

We made use of the comparative solitude of the beach and the good weather, and photographed in the dunes, in the sea, and in a sandy cave on the beach. If only every day could be like this one!

(Feel free to comment on favourites - darned if I know which I like best!)

'Yesterday'

'Somewhere, Beyond the Sea'

'Sorceress of the Sea'

'Sandy Cove'

'Sandy Sprawl'

'Reach for the Rocks' (Mono)

'Reach for the Rocks'

'Beached'

'Prowl'

'Sandy Sprawl' (Mono)

'Corner Cove'

'Sand Eel'

'Wheeeeeeeeee!'

All images copyright of Dave Ayerst Davies

1 comment:

Anonymous6 January 2011 at 19:52
Wildness and beauty
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Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird - Wallace Stevens

Among twenty snowy mountains,
The only moving thing
Was the eye of the blackbird.

II
I was of three minds,
Like a tree
In which there are three blackbirds.

III
The blackbird whirled in the autumn winds.
It was a small part of the pantomime.

IV
A man and a woman
Are one.
A man and a woman and a blackbird
Are one.

V
I do not know which to prefer,
The beauty of inflections
Or the beauty of innuendoes,
The blackbird whistling
Or just after.

VI
Icicles filled the long window
With barbaric glass.
The shadow of the blackbird
Crossed it, to and fro.
The mood
Traced in the shadow
An indecipherable cause.

VII
O thin men of Haddam,
Why do you imagine golden birds?
Do you not see how the blackbird
Walks around the feet
Of the women about you?

VIII
I know noble accents
And lucid, inescapable rhythms;
But I know, too,
That the blackbird is involved
In what I know.

IX
When the blackbird flew out of sight,
It marked the edge
Of one of many circles.

X
At the sight of blackbirds
Flying in a green light,
Even the bawds of euphony
Would cry out sharply.

XI
He rode over Connecticut
In a glass coach.
Once, a fear pierced him,
In that he mistook
The shadow of his equipage
For blackbirds.

XII
The river is moving.
The blackbird must be flying.

XIII
It was evening all afternoon.
It was snowing
And it was going to snow.
The blackbird sat
In the cedar-limbs.

____________________

Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Mailbox - ERosanne

Blue, like the skies beyond,

merging into a
new mailbox.

Vacant space,
a mailbox stands alone
on barren land.

Darkest night,
a moonbeam reflects
from the mailbox.

A boat,
faring turbulent seas
to distant mailboxes.

A broken heart,
delivered to
an empty mailbox.

Flowers grow,
life springs from
an open mailbox.

But flowers die
and crumble from
a closed mailbox.

The road
is clearly visible
from a prison mailbox.

A river of dreams,
cascading from
a leaking mailbox.

Cobwebs creep,
demon swarming
over a peeling mailbox.

Sun sets behind
the silhouette
of a leaning mailbox.

Lightning strikes,
rain drips from
a broken mailbox.

A creature stirs,
a child is kicking
an old, old mailbox.

By ERosanne

(Written when living in the USA for a poetry project based on your favourite poem.
Wallace Stevens' poem "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird" contains thirteen haiku like verses, this poem follows the same format.)

____________________

If you had lived...

They say that some things are just not meant to be,
But nevertheless, you were special to me.
'You' were my hopes, and my future plans,
I imagined my world in your tiny hands.

In my thoughts, I had held you,
Pictured who you might be,
And I felt that I knew you,
Though you never knew me.

For weeks, you provided my secret smile,
And I'm proud that I carried you 'round, for a while.
I'd like to believe you are safe, up above,
But if you had lived - you would have been loved.

ERosanne.
____________________