Rising

I’m still trying with varying noticeable success to get rid of things I no longer need – and for various reasons actually no longer have room for. This includes old notebooks, some of which are completely empty but really, I only need one, don’t I, and also I do most of my writing here, and take notes on my phone.  In one of the notebooks I found some jottings and the way I had written them was as if I was making notes for a poem. Thew were like word snapshots which no doubt I thought would remind me of what I’d seen, however, it’s such a while ago that they don’t really.

I think I wrote them while we were in Tasmania, and I think we went for a walk through an ancient forest with massive trees towering over us, but I can’t exactly remember whereabouts it was. The title is ‘Rising’ which alludes to the huge mountain ashes (not like our British rowans at all) – or were they gum trees? They seemed huge but from my awkward scraps of writing I think they were comparatively young trees, grown up since the awful fires of 1967.

The start of the walk must have been through quite thick groves because I mention going ‘through the forest darkly’  and gradually the trees thinned out and were smaller further up the mountainside. The path we followed was beside very rocky cliffs – maybe they were white or maybe the lichen was white – I can’t really read my own writing! Eventually we must have emerged from the misty clouds and emerged into a more open area with tumbled rocks and small. small shrubs.

So many memories of that wonderful six week holiday are so vivid, but some, like those of this mountain adventure, are now somewhat blurry. I looked back at my photos and found one which may have been taken as we explored that ancient forest.