It is not down in any map; true places never are.
Herman Melville
I
Out on the fringe of gold
– lip of coastal edge.
Eyeing that breath of line
– flux of sea and sky.
Grounded punctuation
– conical crag of hill.
Arrested flow of time
– phonolitic trachyte.
II
I’m over the cerulean Forth
– tang of brine and caws of gulls.
Walking the high line Out
– to North Berwick Law.
Treading clouds and updraughts
– the whale, reeling me in
Out there, slipping through
– into that void of white.
♦
With a huge thanks to Brian David Stevens for the use of his photographs shot from Kinghorn Beach in Fife. These images are part of Brian’s ongoing Brighter Later project which is a journey around the British Isles looking outward from the coastline to show a different view of the UK. The journey will visit every coastal county in the British Isles. The project is currently being serialised on the Caught By the River website with Fife the most recent entry.
The volcanic plug of solidified lava – North Berwick Law (hill) – is clearly visible in the photographs and I had forgotten about the whale jawbones on the summit which Brian mentions in his text. Staring at the images got me thinking about Kinghorn, volcanic plugs, whales, Herman Melville, Laurie Anderson…
Some people know exactly where
they’re going
The Pilgrims to Mecca
The climbers to the mountaintop
But me I’m looking
For just a single moment
So I can slip through time.
Laurie Anderson, Life on a String. (Including songs from her stage production Songs and Stories From Moby-Dick).
Images © Brian David Steven.
Also check out Brian’s other wonderful photographic work here
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