Rambling
The bright morning trickles through the window. No rain in sight. Sunday eh! Wouldn’t mind going somewhere. The phone rings twice. Pick up the phone. “Nice day. Edale? Cool.” Meet at noon, shabby train shuttles north and talking. Jump off at the station, pick a direction, and go where we are going. A steep hill here, a steep hill there – we swing over a gate called “Private Land” and hop over crap in muddied fields showered from the night before. Rain falls again and you ask: “When rain softens shit and wind wafts the scent, can you associate the smell with milk chocolate?” And the smell is more lucid the higher we climb – up the grassy hills where more sheep graze – out of the city, inner the country, we step on wedged stones of differing greys. The destination is that peak you point to, only to reach and find another peak greets us.
More hills to climb, and oh yes we climb; roughing up the cherry and purple heather tufts. Later take a breather in a carved out little spot; lighting up our herbal under nostrils of The God. Hazy now but we in control; splashing through peat bogs and running streams, and remember the clock goes back an hour? Never mind chocolate we better be heading down for there’s certainly no Cadbury’s up here. Which way? Hey! Hail beats our face. Mist manifests. Darkness descending and we still high – got to get low. Hooray! Two plastic purple suits hiking our way. They are ascending higher and higher. “Please direct two novice ramblers to the path descending this sky.” They smile, eyeing our soaked through jeans. “Look! You have to go up in order to go down.” A scandal! We don’t even hear them, ignoring their advice, and decide on taking a chance – a Route 1 down – kamikaze, kamikaze, kamikaze style.
Bumped the last 20 yards on sight of freedom’s path and on reaching freedom’s path, forehead thudded on the ground. Drinking salty water, splatter face right where I lay, and hey! Feel good – so good. Like Bellamy in the raincoat and yellow matching hat. I saw him aeons ago when just a little boy. He was so content talking beauties of our nature; named grasses, flowers, trees and earthly intimates of that order. It was hammering down with rain, lightning, thunder and he – simply – loved the outdoors. And this water does taste bitter, standing over me you say:
“Come on – let us go drink the Peak’s finest pint. We deserve it.”
Read Poem: Cosmic Convergence: Exploring the Interplay of Minds and Galaxies
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- Edale. Derbyshire Peak District, England, United Kingdom.
