The full length piece can be found here as a blog page as it takes up a bit of space (though does not comprise many words). I have recently been looking at some very old travel writings, mostly taking the form of haibun. This one was composed on a brief visit to the Orkney Islands, north of mainland Scotland, during the midsummer of 1980. I have added a few new linking texts, but apart from that the piece remains as originally composed. Accompanying the text were originally some black and white photographs, but as this was long before the days of digital anything, I will have to do considerable playing around to reintroduce them (once I have located prints or negatives)
XVI
(solstice)
Returning to Stromness I cooked an evening meal and then wandered aimlessly along the coast. Although I had to rise early next morning, planning to take a boat to Hoy, I was unable to leave such a beautiful evening. Despite the hour, it was still very light, and a deep silence filled both myself and the land through which I walked. Resonance was everywhere. Great wellings up of deep emotion when I beheld the waves on a small foreshore; the trawler, its mast-light flickering, heading out to sea; the hills and cliffs of Hoy across the water almost melting into the deep stillness of oncoming night; young lambs bleating on the hillside; mother ducks with their young by the shore.
this evening, too, lingers,
unwilling to leave
your summer stillness,
Islands of the far north.
on the shore
wave upon wave
only deepens the silence,
Islands of the far north.
XVII
(gift)
soon to depart,
at last
the tune
of something
framing this land
the stranger
knows a wholeness
to which
he does not belong.
simonhlilly 
Conversing with invisible friends (1)
April 19, 2013 by simonhlilly
CONVERSING WITH INVISIBLE FRIENDS
It is not infrequently that I find reading someone’s blog I become word-filled, or at least taste the winds of wordage. A spontaneous thing, a few lines cast down in appreciation or conversation. I have begun collecting those that pleased or surprised me under the above title. Some are complete in themselves, some just torn pages, sketches, notions. But amusing, I hope. A bouquet for my muses ( you lot of screen-lit waifs and strangers, mind-readers, mind-sharers, an osmosis of muses).
1
DREAMING
Caught in this hammock,
Dew-wet spider web:
February day
Dreaming of spring.
Night now.
The world calling low
Down my chimney:
“come out, the clouds
Are fast and glowing pale.”
2
JUGGLER
And what’s a man without his shoes?
A cold toed dancing monkey,
off balance
and drunk on gravity!
3
TINNITUS
It must all end thusly,
stopping suddenly,
like thoughts do, like life does,
as boredom or something more inviting
takes the stage.
A nice touch,
like hearing a wash of bar-room gossip,
or a sudden rush of fragmented,
incomprehensible telepathy….
4
TOO SMART
Stepping over cracks,
papered, glued.
Names for emptiness,
even clever emptiness that a mind can leap.
One by one
we shall all disappear,
finding everyone else,
who have also disappeared,
wondering how that,
how that could possibly happen,
how that could possibly happen again,
again
and again.
5
MUSED
The poet fights to get out,
is slapped down with a gritty hand,
that then too,
turns into a mudra of revealing.
A nonchalent hide and seek,
footsteps echoing in silence.
The maniac down the corridor titters loudly….
6
LILT
Speed and convolution,
locomotive breath.
Delicate pace
with careful tongue.
Disallowed,
my comments,
strange,
syllabic apprehension,
jealous machines…
7
ASIDES
Underestimated, the value of brackets!
They packet up thought and expression,
more similarly to thought and voice,
than more highly regarded punctuations.
I am all for brackets
( I shall make a placard,
and stand on cold corners
(with a small dog and rattling can).
(and I neither object to brackets within brackets
(though a sniffy grammarian might grumble)).
They are raised eyebrows and slight smiles.
They are knowing ness and by the way ness.
They are signposts in the significance
and waywardness of a train of thought
(we are now off the rails and improvising,
(mouth moving, brain aghast)).
And by the way,
the jewel of your words has a certain ring,
engaging,
wed to the world
(punning though,
is the sign of devils
playing with idle hands).
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