Nature has long been man’s primary source of beauty and wonder. Ever since our minds were forged in the savannahs of our species’ youth we have sought out landscapes, seascapes, the shade of trees, the touch of fresh water, with the same instinctive lust as we sought out the beauteous in our own species. …
Tag: nature
Since You Want the Light
Timeless Reading poetry in the sun I can assign oblivion to forgetting. Reading poetry in the sun I can entomb history Within the silver dome I see From the corner of my eye. Reading poetry in the sun I feel at home on the empty boat That lies deathly still On the…
Variations on a Grey
The only consistency in this deceptively static landscape is the cold. Wherever you walk and look frost adds a second layer of skin unto anything. But the weather in the Torres del Paine is as random as a slot-machine. Day to day you never know what you’re going to get. After our Patagonian Odyssey…
The Patagonia Diaries
We left Puerto Natales and ahead of us was the immense road. It was as if we were traversing continents, but all we were doing was travelling from point A to point A.2. This Patagonia is like a solar system on the very fringes of our planet. Our driver, Luis, was a Santiago…
Chile Here We Come
Watch this space! The writer (myself) and the artist (my wife) will be heading off for our honeymoon adventure in Chile – the other side of the blue planet. We’ll be travelling down to Patagonia, the most remote landscape left on earth, as pristine and desolate as a Martian landscape. We’ll also be travelling to…
Poems of Seasonal Modernity
A Waterfall of Silence A waterfall of silence, Somewhere in human hearts. In the Levant or the Orient, A tear falls on death’s ears. There’s nothing to love But love itself, And where children die The planet turns. For the great happiness of all Stars do their nocturnal ballet. For the memories…
Seventeen Summer Haikus
A painting that’s green An embrace of golden arms What a day to swim. Forts without colour A sky undressed by summer Hues of life and death. At the funeral An insect lies with the worms And the slum lives on. Time after time now I have asked why lesbians love…
Dictionary of the Numinous
Isn’t it incredible how sometimes beautiful-sounding words happen to mean something even more wondrous? Think of ‘sublunary’, ‘sublime’ and ‘crepuscular’. The one that’s caught my attention most recently is the word ‘numinous’. But when I looked it up, for utmost clarity, on the Oxford dictionary, I found something disappointingly antagonising. The definition, according…
The Multitudinous Writings In Store For 2017
Amidst all the high-profile deaths, the worrying political upheavals, and surprising football, what stands out clearest in my memory for 2016 is Planet Earth II. David Attenborough’s masterpiece and the BBC’s swansong for many years to come. It was the most inspiring thing to be produced and the most significant. And whilst, on a…
The Champagne Epicurean 