High in Scotland

Scotland now has us under its thrall. Every day I go out to let the silence wash over me. A few yards up the lane and silence is lost to brawling falls streaming from the high moorland and forests.

This is an eternal sound; this is the sound that our pre-historic ancestors heard – no different.  There is little else that links us directly to the far past. These are the opening stanzas of a poem from 2019…

Beyond our ancestors and all of theirs,
There is one sound we hear with unchanged ears.
For every generation, in its way,
Hears that self-same primeval song today –
Over all the world’s uncountable years
And through all her wilderness areas.

This, an echo that even time ignores,
Belying, for me, many natural laws.
Constant. Changing in essence not a note
Nor resounding from any creature’s throat.
Had people time enough when work was through,
Who can tell, then, how it was listened to.

Wind – gale force to even the merest breeze,
Has long fingered forested canopies:
Woodwind! through flinty bush and bare branched tree
Plays the reeds which years change structurally.
Birch, pine, oak, maybe even unto Ent!
Each with vibrations made so different

If you’d like to read the remainder, it’s on my website http://www.fire-raven.co.uk/poetry.html under the title ‘Of all the sounds’.

News – Art

I’m currently without a studio, and the weather, beautiful though it is, is not for me encouraging to work outside – not the way I work. Additionally, I cannot amass any more works demanding storage, so, even though the marvellous Dr J has taken so many of my paintings, I still have stored or hanging on walls ~100 more – some to the distress of my family who do not appreciate the pinnacle of painting ambition – the human form. Odd this, we all have a body, yet so many people find it hard or embarrassing to look at. Have a look and judge for yourself here https://www.artfinder.com/artist/richard-meyer/ .

News – Wildlife

The friendly Weasel

A Weasel Mustela nivalis in a cattle grid seemed much more curious about these strange bipeds than scared, and a Buzzard Buteo buteo is as tame as a titmouse around our garden every day, over which an eagle often flies low.

Our friendly Buzzard

And we all know how phenomenal their eyesight is. I can only assume that fewer people means less disturbance, and I never hear a gun shot. Mind you, not far away I suppose are grouse moors and deer stalking. My search for the Scottish wildcat will have to wait for another time, and I do not expect, or want, it to be so friendly!

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