Shadowline

Looking back so soon - to the Suffolk landscape.

Each window at Snape Maltings was a bright beacon maintaining a view onto paradise at the end of corridors, and stopping to gaze out the view would become so much more important than any other immediate concern, a form of escapism - the bright sweep of the reed beds in the immediate foreground, constantly sighing; the arcane dip of the muddy banks revealed at low tide, those great silvery reaches pockmarked, bird-stained, a rich source of life that I can only just comprehend - on the far bank, the squat tower of the church at Iken hugged by brotherly trees; and in the background the open course of farmland and hedgerows with their permanent swatches of gorse. All this capped by 'the big skies' as I came to think of them - true, dramatic, unlimited formations of cloud and changing densities of blue - light's dividend. The absorbing, ancient feeling in each glimpse of it all. Maybe the landscape was repeating and reflecting some latent knowledge of place, forging affinities that I never expected could happen, a pleasure principle way beyond mere visual excitement and stimulation - something far deeper, whispering of history and discoveries of language and species; the soul's kiss and re-awakening. Potency, potential, and hidden familiarity rising effortlessly through the reeds -

And now I'm left with the ensuing regret of leaving it - a vacancy inside similar to pining for a lost love -

Winchester 14/6/06